Tekken Director’s Failed Prank Could’ve Got Capcom In Trouble

Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada and former Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono used to be hilarious Twitter rivals. Years ago, while at Gamescom, Harada thought he’d play a prank on Ono. It seemed like a pretty good one until he found out Ono had outsmarted him. 

During a recent off-topic talk on the Tekken director’s YouTube channel, Harada recounted the story. “I played a prank,” he said. “And I was tweeting about it the entire time.”

Harada had asked Ono what hotel and what room he was staying in. “I was going to play a trick, so I asked him naturally so that he wouldn’t realize.”

Then, Harada wrote “Please disturb” instead of “Do not disturb” on a little card and drew a picture of a piece of poop.

His Twitter followers were most amused by the little prank. Later, at dinner, Harada told Ono about the gag to make sure he tweeted out his reaction. “Ono-san had no idea I played a prank like this,” Harada said.

“And then, the Capcom people started turning pale,” he continued. The room where the “Please disturb” card was placed was not Ono’s room.

“When I asked him for his room number, Ono-san being Ono-san, he lied.” The producer had just said a random number. “When it comes to stuff like this, he’s oddly sharp,” Harada explained. “He thought I was up to something or was going to do something.”

The person staying in that room didn’t work for Capcom, though. He didn’t work for Namco. He worked for Microsoft at their US headquarters. “It happened to belong to one of the quite high up executives.” Ono-san had just said a random number, and that number happened to be the room where a very important person was staying—and the room where Harada had just hung a “Please disturb” sign with a poop drawing. He had even put Street Fighter IV art next to the poop.

“They wouldn’t know that I did that,” Harada said. “It looked like someone at Capcom did. So, at dinner, the Capcom people started making noises and going pale.” Capcom staff ran to the room in an effort to remove the handwritten sign from the doorknob, and came back, out of breath, Harada’s prank message in hand.

“We still don’t know if Microsoft people saw the card,” said Harada. “But I think if they did, they would have removed it.” The Tekken director doesn’t think they did, remarking that this was indeed a very close call.

This is just one of several interesting stories Harada recounts. Hear them all in the clip below: