Tekken 6 on US location via The Stinger Report

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I had mentioned in my ASI reports that I had the opportunity to meet up with Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report during the show and after discussing the show and the industry in general he mentioned that after the show he would be heading down to California to check out one of the few Tekken 6 machines that have been imported into the US from Hong Kong. Now thanks to The Stinger Report we have a look at that machine as well as the popularity surrounding the machine at this particular location called the Super Arcade, which caters to hardcore players and features several games on-site that weren’t released in the US. All photos courtesy of The Stinger Report and are used with permission.

Even though Kevin visited the site on a Monday when people were heading back to school after Spring Break, four players were sitting around the new sit-down Tekken 6 machine, hoarding what they could for themselves. The cabinet is called the A89, or International English cabinet and is incapable of connecting to the internet, thus forgoing the online player rankings and updates because the IC card systems are different. Yet the operator of the site acknowledged that the game was a “phenomenal player magnet” which was further indicated by the fact that players were lining up tokens to denote who was next in line to play (which is a practice that I’ve heard of being done in the early 80’s but not since).

In addition to the HD cabinet on-site the arcade was also selling T6 IC cards for $6 a unit(pictured), such cards being used for saving your own personal data. Super Arcade runs using tokens and charges 2 tokens per play and as a testament to how much the game is being played the coin-mechs had to be cleared of an overflow jam as Kevin sat down to play the game. Again, this was on a Monday during the day – traditionally not a busy time for arcades anywhere.

So there you have it, for an arcade that can afford the game Tekken 6 is repeating the same success that the game is seeing in other parts of the world. Whether more arcades in the US will go through the trouble of importing the game remains to be seen but for those that do this is one game that has proven itself to draw in the players.