Namco's research managing director Shegeichi Nakamura met with
Sony Computer Entertainment head
Ken Kutaragi in 1993 to discuss the preliminary PlayStation specifications, with Namco subsequently developing the System 11 arcade board based on PlayStation hardware and
Tekken as their answer to
Sega's popular
Virtua Fighter.
Tekken was initially planned for the
Namco System 22, after Namco heard Sega was developing
Virtua Fighter 2 for their new
Sega Model 2 board, before the development of
Tekken was later moved to the System 11 after the meeting with Kutaragi.
Tekken was the first game to use the System 11, and was initially released for
arcades in September 1994, several months before the PlayStation's Japanese release in December 1994. Although the System 11 was technically inferior to the Sega Model 2 arcade board, its lower price made it an attractive prospect for smaller arcades. According to the June 1995 issue of
Edge: Namco System 12 was developed using the same basic configuration as System 11 but with the CPU operating frequency increased 1.5 times. This board was first publicly used for
Tekken 3 released in March 1997. ==Technical specifications==