[Thanks to Phil Ver 0 on our forums]
The new game DJ Max Technika has been testing in California and thanks to one of our readers, we have information on how that has been going down. Now we previously reported that there are two machines testing in CA, one at an arcade at UCLA and one at a regular video game store where the owner knowns some of the people involved with DJ Max and so he 
is promoting the game heavily.
Phil has posted his impressions on the game along with pictures on our forums but here are some highlights from his report:
What’s good about this game is how everything is base on a touch screen which presents many challenges for the player to get adjusted to. The player, at times, would need to have a certain technique in order to hit some of the notes, as well as good eye coordination because if you blink you might miss a note or two or three.
The Grading system seems to be the same with older music games with 5 timing systems of MAX (Perfect or Flashing Great), COOL (Great), GOOD (Good), MISS (Bad), and Break (Miss).
This game already have a lot going over UBeat and a lot better, in my opinion, than UBeat itself. I will bring more this coming Thursday with Pro, Cons and final thoughts and how will it do in this market
It would be interesting to see a UBeat and a DJ Max Technika game put next to each other to see how they would do, even though the games do share some striking differences.
Bemanistyle is also reporting that PM Studios (the company behind the game in the US) has announced some contests in relation to the UCLA location test which are aiming to promote the game beyond just a simple test. While I understand and respect the decision by most arcade companies to do low-profile testing of a game, since you need an idea of how a game does by itself, I also think that there is great value in high-profile location tests and that every arcade game should do them in addition to prior low-profile testing. One thing that we should learn from console gaming is that hype works. While I don’t really care for hype as it will often create incorrect expectations, hype + arcades can be a good thing for all of us in the industry as we all still have to deal with that issue where people think that arcades are dead. It’s not just that – when it comes to console hype, most of that is generated by a few journalists who are paid to talk about games (and in some cases, paid to create hype) where as arcade location testing gives anyone in the area a chance to play the game and if hype comes out of that, I’d feel far more confident about it since it’s coming from players.
