For starters, TTT2 is going to be shown with new software that “evolved dramatically to add new elements”. They are calling it New Tekken Tag Tournament 2 for now, so it must be somewhat of an important update to give it a slight name change so soon after it was released in September last year. I am personally curious to know if those changes will be brought to the US arcade version and also when exactly we are going to see the US version now that the location tests have completed.

One title we have talked about a few times that has also shown up on location test out West, Dark Escape 3D will be there in a playable form.

So will the new Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme VS Full Boost arcade title, which is slated for an April release, being the newest version of this series for Japanese arcades.

As for some new stuff we haven’t heard of before there is a little of that. One in particular is a new air hockey table by Namco called Big Bang Smash. There are no pictures of it yet and they are saying it will use a new feature for four players to enjoy although what that is exactly is unknown for now. I imagine that it will be space-themed judging by the name alone (unless they throw us off guard by making a Big Bang Theory licensed game but that’s unlikely ) and with as big as air hockey is out West, perhaps this is another game we might have a chance to see.

As for games that are certainly not destined for Western releases are a few “Medal Games” they will have on hand. There is a Pokemon multiplayer game and a new fishing table game for eight players. The fishing concept seems to be used a lot in these types of games, especially in China, although they always use joysticks – Namco is going to use a fishing rod reel controller instead.

That’s about it for now, you can read and see more over at 4Gamer.net if you are interested.

Next story: Newsfeed 1168 via

When I saw this story, I first thought “This is still happening out there?” and the answer is yes. We’ve done stories on this before and they are always the same thing so no surprises are in store. I would otherwise overlook it if there was some decent news coming along but we’re still in the early year slump. Fortunately as usual, the child in this story makes it out just fine, in fact in this case the child crawled back out on the offer of a toy, as opposed for everyone waiting for the machine operator to show up.

Article @ The Sun

UPDATE: I was thinking about it and I figure now is a good time to mention progress on the book I am writing. Life has kept me from really completing it which I probably should have done by now but I have made good progress – an introduction is complete and longer than I thought it was going to be but I have rewritten parts of the first two chapters a few times as I fine tune them to my liking, covering certain aspects of the modern arcade industry as I see them, with a little flashback to the past. I spend a little time on the game crash of ’83 but that’s not a primary focus. Hopefully before too long I’ll have an excerpt I’m happy to share with everyone from it.

Much like Golden Tee, every year you can expect to see some sort of new King Of Fighters game for arcades and while they aren’t coming out with KOF14 quite yet, a new update is going to be close with the new King of Fighters XIII Climax. For the moment that is all to be said about the game – I know the series isn’t near as popular as Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat but it still does have a following out there. I imagine that an official arcade release out West would probably do a little better than something like Blazblue did.

[KOFXIII Teaser Site]

I can’t say I particularly care for this trend of news that deals with more with mobile devices lately than actual arcades, but the kind of news that we generally focus on will probably be slow until AOU so we take what we can get.

So let’s start off with a hypothetical idea – what would happen if you took several coin-op game designer alumni and brought them together to develop a new game? While I think of that in the sense of what if they came back to do a coin-op game, we won’t know that for a long time most likely but we will know the result of that on the iPad thanks to the formation of a new company called Innovative Leisure. If that name sounds familiar to a degree, that is most likely because it used to be a marketing line from Atari back in the 70s in regards to their arcade development. It’s what they used before “Have you played Atari today?”

Yep, this is their logo

The new company, headed by Seamus Blackley of Xbox development fame has brought together several individuals whose games you have likely played at some point and they all have experience making classic coin-op arcade games: Ed Logg, Owen Rubin, Tim Skelly, Ed Rotberg, Dennis Koble, Rich Adam, Lyle Rains, Bruce Merritt, Bob Smith and Rob Zydbel.

Of course there is always a possibility that one of the new games they develop still manage to end up in arcades, as has been seen with other iPad games like Fruit Ninja, Infinity Blade and Flight Control. It certainly would be neat if at some point they decide to tackle a specific coin-op project but I doubt that is anywhere near likely for now.

 More details are available through this Gamasutra article.

For the most part it fits into what we already discussed but there is something new and unexpected that they will show off, Triangle Services “Love Arcade” (as it happens to be translated. Perhaps it should be Arcade Love, judging by the game style). At first I thought this would be another date sim type game but it actually is a small collection of space shmup mini-games for four players. It sounds like they are targeting it towards kids in testing their shooting skills (without going full bullet hell on them). The graphics aren’t anything exciting and it seems like the kind of thing they would keep in Japan unless a ticket dispenser was slapped onto it. Triangle had been responsible for another multiplayer game with crude graphics that seems to have been canceled – the 8-player Pengo game from some time ago. I still think that would have been a viable product with a unique cocktail cabinet and improved graphics.

Sega AOU 2012 Site

The next part is Newsfeed 1164 via Story via io9.com

In other news of the “slightly related” realm, here is a video of some flying robots (Nano Quadrotors to be more specfic) made by the GRASP Laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania. While it immediately conjures up images of classic arcade games like Galaga I also think of actual arcade application of such devices. If they could be developed to a point where they can lift off by themselves and self-charge properly, you could make a very interesting EM arcade game out of it, a Real Galaga of sorts. You could have real obstacles for them to hide behind that move, all you would need at that point is to come up with a convincing way to fire at them and them at you. I’m sure sure a thing would be years off since we are still waiting for other, somewhat less complicated robotic arcade games to finally make it out into public but it’s an idea for the future.

If you didn’t get a fill from the EAG show last week then never fear, another arcade trade show is just around the corner, this time in Japan. The Amusement Operators Union or AOU, takes place every February and often has some surprises in store for some of the latest stuff that will be making it’s way to arcades in Asia, and on occasion content that will be landing overseas.

As nearly every day from now until the show  takes place in two weeks there are updates as to what will be there, I will label this as part 1.

So far not much has been unveiled and often manufacturers will save certain games as surprises for the show itself. But Konami has provided a decent line-up of what to expect including:

DanceEvolution Arcade

Steel Chronicle

Jubeat Copious

And a few other Medal games. We’ve covered each of these aforementioned titles and from the three I could see DanceEvolution Arcade making it’s way out West. Seeing how DDRX3 doesn’t seem to be getting love here so far, this could logically end up being Konami’s arcade replacement for it. I know that would cause gnashing off teeth to even suggest it but it’s just a hunch on my end. I don’t know the sales numbers in the US or Europe on DDRX or DDRX2 but between that and Pump It Up I have wondered how many $10k dance pad games the market can support that come out on an annual basis. At the very least, DanceEvolution will offer a change of pace and can stand out and no more worries about failing pads from the stomping that goes on.

Also to note, AndriaSang is saying that Konami is suggesting that this is the first arcade game to use Kinect ever. That is mostly true – let’s not forget the Game Gate Let’s Kinect, although that was a coin-op interface for using Kinect games made for the Xbox 360 and not specific arcade games. So in the sense that this is something made as arcade software and not an Xbox 360 Kinect exclusive, Konami is right.

Naturally I would love to see Steel Chronicle or something like it come along out West but the chances of that are about as likely as Sega releasing the Dreamcast 2 anytime soon.

UPDATE: Here’s a video of the DanceEvolution Arcade Location test in Korea, which link I found from Yerdito on Twitter.

Sega has also given a little information on what they will bring along:

MaiMai

Under Night In-Birth

Shining Force Cross Elysium

Latest version of Border Break

MaiMai is Sega’s latest touch music game with a unique design but Sega has not seemed very keen on bringing those types of games out West so I wouldn’t count on it outside of imports. The same goes for the rest of their video line-up so far. Under Night In-Birth is a RingEdge-powered fighting game that at first glance makes me think of BlazBlue, although I’m sure it has it’s differences. Both Border Break and Shining Force Cross have been well received in Japan and like Steel Chronicle, there is a very, very small chance we would see them outside of Japan (they aren’t the kinds of games that get imported elsewhere too often either).

Namco will bring Dark Escape 3D to the show in a playable form this time. This one is coming out West later this year after it is released in Japan this July. Namco will certainly have some other games there but for the moment DE3D is the only thing they have mentioned.

Finally, there is no word on whether Square Enix’s Gunslinger Stratos will be making an appearance there, although that would make sense for it to do so. In case anyone is interested in what game engine is powering the game, this article on 4Gamer.net gets into a little detail on the Orochi engine that the game uses. The engine itself will be used on every platform out there, including the upcoming Wii U, this will certainly be the first arcade title to use it. It also fortifies my thought that this uses the new Taito TypeX3 board. Apparently the Orochi engine allowed for quick prototyping on the game (which is quite important for arcade games that are tackling some new concepts) and it offers everything needed to make the game fit into what Japanese game developers crave and in what players like to see. I wouldn’t be surprised if other arcade games from Taito/Square Enix being using this engine down the road.

Newsfeed 1161 via 

News in the real coin-op space has been a bit slow for the past week so this leads us into the territory of something related to the business. Namco has not been a stranger to creating mobile apps and they have announced a new app for iOS that gives you a virtual Namco arcade gameroom in your hands. Called Namco Arcade, you can pick from a few different classic Namco arcade games and either play it once for free per day,  purchase 10 Play Coins for 99¢ to insert into the machine to play them as long as you have coins or buy the machine outright. As such this model of the play coins fits into real microtransactions (not so-called microtransations you often see on game consoles where “micro” somehow amounts to a few dollars) and keep in step with the arcade spirit of the games.

Of course one question could be how does it control – I know with the few apps I have tried on my Kindle Fire, I haven’t been too thrilled with games that try to mimick a joystick/button interface on the touchscreen.  As you can see from the picture above, the buttons look to be a little too large but perhaps it appears differently on your device.

For those interested, more info can be found here @ the iTunes App Store

UPDATE: Joystiq states that Coastal Amusement’s arcade version of Sea Wolf is also coming to the iOS.

[ Via InsideMobileApps.com ]

The Dodonpachi series has created a strong following in circles of shmup players and while it had seemed for a time that Cave might give up on arcades in favor of developments elsewhere, that seems to have been put on hold from the news this morning. Cave has announced that this Spring they are going to release Dodonpachi Saidaioujou in Japanese arcades, after testing it out next month. As usual, I imagine that we will only see this out West as an import. Aside from that, nothing is known about the game at the moment but I’m sure that will be changing before too long as details will certainly begin leaking out soon.

Official Dodonpachi Saidaioujou Website / Via 4Gamer.net

HeavyElectricity will be posting his own thoughts on the show soon, personally since I didn’t make it there I can’t say more about it than what I have seen and heard which isn’t much. A Facebook friend of mine came away very disappointed as there was a lack of innovative games and concepts to handle; from what I can tell most everything there I saw at IAAPA a few months ago so there were no surprises except for the urination game. Most often EAG has a little more in the realm of new stuff to show off that wasn’t seen at IAAPA but that isn’t always going to be the case.  At the very least I’ve heard that something big and innovative is going to be at Amusement Expo in March so we have that to look forward to when it comes to new stuff.

As it is though, the remaining pictures we have here will show off games that will look familiar if you have followed our previous show coverage from other events in 2011.

Adrenaline Amusements and Fruit Ninja FX and Infinity Blade FX. I’ve heard from a few sources that Fruit Ninja is doing very well on location, beating out many traditional (electromechanical) ticket redemption games in terms of earnings. Next picture shows Cube Shooter (which is not an Adrenaline Amusements game) near an Infinity Blade FX. We covered Cube Shooter in a previous post.

Namco’s Deadstorm Pirates 3D was on hand. I mentioned in our IAAPA coverage that out of all the 3D stuff I have seen, this had the smoothest 3D although you do have to wear glasses. Also below the standard version of Deadstorm Pirates.

Pac-Man’s Arcade Party in coin and non-coin units.

Taito/GlobalVR’s FrightFearLand. Interesting to note that here they also give it the subtitle “Panic Museum 2″ which is what the game really is. Some of the artwork from the first game is also on this cabinet, along with the same guns.

Sega’s Operation GHOST in a slightly different cabinet

Sega’s Let’s Go Island 3D. This is supposed to have air blowers running, which weren’t active at IAAPA

Belrare’s Breakout/Arkanoid type game, Pong Pong Table

A blurry pic of Andamiro’s Over The Top

Newsfeed 1160 via The Stinger Report

Click to enlarge

We often mention pinball when there is something new in the area but when it comes to more mainstream gaming sites, they don’t really pay much attention to pinball unless it’s a virtual package that can show up in their mailbox. Real pinball is one of those things you have to leave the house for and seek out, do a little research on.

This article at Destructoid.com gets into “The Joy of Pinball”. On that particular subject I’ll let it speak for itself for the most part as the author lays out why he likes pinball so much. But of course this gives me an opportunity to ramble on about the subject once again, so here we go. I think that for most of us that play, it’s the physical nature of the game, the design and unexpected twists each game can bring. I would just add that the solution to keeping pinball alive is to go out and play. It’s no different than the arcade scene really – if you want it to stick around, support local businesses that offer such things. If they make enough money off a machine to pay it off and then some, they can buy more. If one machine in particular does really well, that’s the loudest indicator to an operator that there is reason to buy such machines in the first place. The more arcade/pinball machines that sell because of this, the more that will be made.

I don’t think the pinball scene is dying necessarily – of course it’s still nowhere near what it was like in the 90s but Stern has managed to keep cranking out machines every year and now that there will be competition in this area beginning in March, the next couple of years while Stern and Jersey Jack duke it out should be exciting. The more games that will be made with a creative edge, the more appeal they will have to players and operators out there. There is no reason pinball can’t bounce back to sales it used to see, they just need to make innovative games that will appeal to people and market them properly so the public knows about them.  One might say that the licenses bring instant appeal but they can be a trap as well if the appeal is niche. Personally I can’t say I care for AC/DC very much, I cared even less for The Rolling Stones. When they offer something new or different in the game itself (as was the case with Rolling Stones LE) that’s when I pay some attention but I would personally be more enticed by a pinball that used rock as the overall theme and music from various bands as opposed to the focus being on one band. Plenty of pinball games in the past used an overall theme as opposed to a focused license to great effect, games that people still enjoy today (as the Destructoid article gets into).

But that’s just me – I know that there are some players who are fans of both pinball and a particular license, and when they see the license they enjoy, they become buyers. I admit that TRON Pinball was enticing to me for that very reason. But we’ve been seeing nothing but licensed games for a decade now and that hasn’t reproduced The Addams Family effect since so I believe that a license has become overrated as it has become overused. The license aspect is slightly different for arcades – an argument that could be made is the license gives the game instant appeal. There’s no denying it does help in that regard, such as we saw with Terminator Salvation (a game which at my arcade still does really well week-in, week-out). But I think when you begin to rely on nothing more than a license to get by, falling into a rut is much easier because the license makes it safe for creativity. Pinball is an example of this as it’s only recently with the potential for competition that we’re starting to see some complex tables come along again. Arcades have been shielded by that to some degree as we have not seen exclusive focus on licenses, instead we’ve seen that focus fall upon genres, where we have our shelters. I think that when it comes to breaking out of such shelters, licenses can be very useful – it makes it easier to approach a new concept when there is a familiar name attached to it. Years ago that wouldn’t have been the case but as our culture is these days, I think it has become a bit more difficult to present new ideas and concepts that become big money makers, albeit not impossible. It’s an interesting balance as I think about it – with a license it can help the unfamiliar become easier to swallow, without it you need to generally create something that is more intuitive to begin with so as to not scare away the easy minded gamer who gives up after a couple of short attempts. Or it can be used to re-enforce a concept that is already familiar and make it more appealing in some cases.

Anyhow, that’s enough rambling on the subject for today. What are your thoughts?