Via 
Back in January, Sega Japan made an announcement that they would be producing a new arcade title based upon the cartoon favorite Transformers. No details were given about the nature of the game other than it would use cards, which is a popular feature for kids games there. Today we have more details on what Sega is doing with the license and it’s actually based upon another concept that they introduced to Japanese arcades last year, which we covered last September. You might recall a story on an effort by Sega to market coin-op games to kids with their Patrol Chaser and Battle Police cabinets and apparently the new Transformers titles will make use of these same kinds of cabinets. One is a dual racing game, the other a mounted light-gun title and both will allow players to use collectible cards (which are available now) to import different Autobots into the game to use. It’s a pretty good idea actually and it’s the kind of concept that I think could work outside of Japan but that being said it’s unlikely we will see it – Sega USA was testing out a card vending coin-op game called Sega Card Gen MLB out last year(which was not a kids game) but after it showed up at AMOA, we haven’t heard of it again which could mean either dismal testing or retooling. Then again I don’t think that the concept should be dead, Transformers is quite popular outside of Japan too so this would be a good way to test the “kid vending” card concept out a little more, especially where the controls use familiar items like light-guns and racing wheels. For now however, this is a Japan-only set of titles and the games will launch this summer.
More info:
[Transformers Animated Arcade @ AnimeAnime.jp] [Cabinets seen at Tformers.com] [Official Transformers Animated Arcade site]
