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A 92-year old grandma named Hisako Sakai has been going viral on social media in Japan as the oldest e-sports winner thanks to her Tekken performance. She won in Tekken 8 in the 12th biannual Care e-Sports Cup. The average age of participants in the tournament was 82.5. [Thanks, Yahoo News!]
The full tournament is available on the Care e-Sports Association YouTube channel. Sakai mains Claudio, using him to defeat powerful opponents like the 95-year-old Reiko Yokota’s Jun, the 74-year-old Sadayuki Kato’s King, and the 74-year-old Goro Sugiyama’s Lili. This is a casual tournament, so competitors (like victor Sakai Hisako) were allowed to turn on assist mode.
According to the Care e-Sports Association official website, it uses e-sports tournaments as a health-promoting exercise to help seniors live happy, healthy, and active lives. Aside from video games, it also holds tournaments for more stereotypical senior activities like shogi and othello. Currently, the organization is holding the events in the Mie, Gifu, and Aichi Prefectures, but it’s hoping to hold a national tournament in Japan.
This is also not the first time its senior tournament became news on the Internet. In July 2025, people were talking about how the 73-year-old grandma Yoshie Murabe won in Tekken 8 using Panda. She must have some real talent, since she never even played video games before.
More and more developers are adding accessibility features to help a wider audience enjoy their video games. For example, in The Last of Us Part II, Naughty Dog added dodge prompts, direction indicators for sound, and high contrast display. With these tools to aid them, it’s possible for senior citizens who couldn’t enjoy video games for physical reasons to play them and, in the case of this particular grandma, excel at them.
Tekken 8 is available on the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Windows PC.
