When I was at IAAPA, I had the chance to talk a little bit with the designers of the game including Makoto Ishii (thanks to Sam for filling me in on that) and I asked them about updates to the game as it seems that with only three levels operators would want a little more in the game. They responded by saying that they would be releasing updates in frequent intervals (which could be added to the machine via a USB thumb drive) and today we have some news on the first update for the game, which adds new Christmas themed avatars. While the English isn’t entirely clear on the Japanese site which reveals this information, it sounds like they have also added a new stage to the game as well.
Whether or not this update will be rolling out with models released outside of Japan does remain to be seen – for example the game is now in production in the US although when the first games will arrive at distributors remains to be seen and by the time it arrives on locations it might be too late for the Christmas avatars but I imagine that having the extra level would be nice. Still, the constant change of the avatars is a nice little way to encourage some replay out of the game and it will most certainly help if they continue to add more levels to the game.
UPDATE: Thanks to Aaron Auzins int he comments he states that a new stage has indeed been added to the game and in addition to Christmas themed avatars which are available for a limited time, they will have other timed avatars throughout 2010 which are related to the year of the tiger (see the comments for more)
UPDATE 2: Sam from Namco Bandai USA informs us that currently these updates are only available for the Japanese market.
The designer you spoke to is Makoto Ishii.
Thanks Sam. Who was the American who was with them translating?
That banner does state a new stage is added to the game, called the “Complex Stage.” The smaller text states that all players can team up together, which I am led to believe teams can take on the large Kaiju-type robots listed in the banner below the stage announcement (although the site mentions some of the content will be available this winter at select locations – not sure of any specifics on that timeframe but this is most likely what will be added with this update or one in the near future). The avatars are indeed a limited time affair, but the banner indicates that not only will the Christmas Santa, snowman and reindeer be added, but there will be additions to reflect New Year holidays festivities with avatars representing the Chinese zodiac. 2010 will be a year of the tiger, and you’ll see it as one such avatar in the lineup.
The translator is Jason Arney. He works on the research department at Namco Bandai in Japan. He started off writing Tekken strategy guides, I believe. As far as I know, the updates on the avatars are only available for the Japanese market because their cabinets are connected to the internet.
Thanks for the info Sam. Jason had mentioned to me that updates would eventually be available via USB drives, I assume that it will be a little while before those can be made available in the US?
Yep.
Shame to make this only available for the Japanese scene – though there seems to be some questions on what the translated version of TTT has over the JP version.
Will the team be at EAG – I would also love to speak to them, help round out the coverage in the Stinger, and Replay / Intergame I have compiled on the product (we were the first to announce it, hint hint hint!)
The reason all of the quick updates are Japanese only is because arcades in Japan pay for subscriptions to certain games where things get updated every now and then to update or change the content. The US doesn’t really have that so it will be quite expensive and time to consuming to update software for seasonal things.
We will be definitely be at EAG.
Dear Sam, thanks for that – we are familiar with the All.Net system that is used by NBG-JP, but it seems that the lack of updates are more that the US market has yet to have the infrastructure established? Maybe with the new ITNet and COINUP we can see a change in consideration. But this statement dose not address the simple way of creating a update (hardware) version for the operators prepared to adopt a path in the US. Have you not considered that you may be only dancing to the older operator tune? There are a lot of new school operators that would bite your hand off for regular updates?
Can we arrange a meeting at EAG with the Namco team and discuss 2010 plans?
I’ll see what I can do about arranging a meeting. I don’t have the schedule for the show yet.
thanks for what can be arranged – email me directly when you know – kwp[at]thestingerreport.com