I completely missed this Tekken rivalry somehow, to me it was just the sexy time Virtua Fighter clone. If anything it probably helped kill Virtua Fighter rather than do anything against its so called rival, Tekken. That said, reading that thread by Harada, I'd say Itagaki was right to think he beat Tekken with DOA2. In some ways only and not success of course. It was beyond anything at the time with multi level 3D arenas, detailed characters and even the Tekken Tag Tournament PS2 remaster/remake/port/whatever you wanna call it, similar to the Soulcalibur upgrade from arcade to Dreamcast, for all its visual prowess, had last gen animation. That said, DOA2 was probably influenced by Namco as well, incorporating the Soulcalibur like 3D movement with the analog stick over the more rigid sideways with sidesteps approach of most other fighting games, Tekken included, at the time.
