Namco has already shown their enthusiasm in celebrating Pac-Man’s 30th anniversary with Pac-Man Battle Royale (due next month) but you can now add two arcade titles to the ways of how they are celebrating. An open house event(click for more pictures) was recently held at the Namco America HQ in Elk Grove Village, IL and in addition to some cake, the attendees had several new Namco games to check out – Tank! Tank! Tank!, Go Go Grand Prix, Dead Heat, Pac-Man Battle Royale and the newly unveiled Pac-Man’s Arcade Party.
For Pac-Man’s 25th anniversary Namco had a multi-game cabinet that they released to celebrate that event as well although it only contained three games – Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga. They also released some countertop versions of that game which featured the same game line-up on a small cabinet that could fit in a variety of places. This new release will feature twelve Namco classics: Pac-Man, Galaga, Pac-Mania, Galaxian, Rally X, Mappy, Dig Dug, Xevious, Bosconian, Galaga ’88, Rolling Thunder, and Dragon Spirit. For a display it will likely use an LCD monitor, like the 25th anniversary cabinets did. There is no release date or price listed for the unit at this time but it will certainly be released before the end of the year.
By looking at the effort Namco is throwing behind this 30th anniversary, I am beginning to wonder if they will be giving Galaga the same treatment next year as that game celebrates it’s 30th birthday. They converted Pac-Man C.E. from Xbox Live Arcade and there is a Galaga update on XBLA as well – could we see a four player return of Galaga to arcades in 2011?
UPDATE: There will be a home cabaret and a cocktail version of this cabinet in addition to the commercial version. (see comments below)
UPDATE#2 : Updated with the final cabinet design as provided by Namco
UPDATE#3: Pac-Man’s Arcade Party will be released before Christmas, possibly October but as late as November and the price point will be similar to the Pac-Man 25th Anniversary cabinets.
On the one hand, I’m disappointed that Ms. Pac-Man, Dragon Saber, and New Rally-X aren’t included, and some of those games have 8-way controls and 4-way controls, so I’m wondering how that will be handled.
On the other hand, this would look nice in my dream game room. I’m going to need more info.
Ms. Pac-Man will be available on the home cabaret and home cocktail units.
Okay, cool. So that’s 13 games, then. I still want Dragon Saber and New Rally-X, but otherwise, it’s a good multigame cab for game rooms.
I wish the 25th Anniversary Edition at an LCD monitor. The upright cabinet came with a Samsung CRT which had a terrible scrolling problem from Day 1 which Namco said wasn’t there problem. I eventually converted the RGB to VGA and put a LCD in, but since I bought this game in 2007 I don’t think I’ve made half of what it costs between the original cost and new LCD costs. Unfortunately sometimes nostalgia doesn’t work. Good Luck 30th Edition!