With the 48th JAMMA Expo nearly upon us, that means that companies are beginning to reveal the game they will be bringing along to the show and today, Sega took the veil off of what they have been working on. The newest title to grace their line-up will be a new addition to the Initial D series, Initial D Arcade Stage 6 AA. Players in Tokyo will get a chance to try the game out before JAMMA however, as it will hit the location test circuit next Tuesday at the Club Sega Akihabara. The RINGEDGE powered game (no, not the mythical Sega game console made up by people who can’t read properly) will offer new cars, characters and courses as expected but it also add Tag Battles for 2 v 2 play and it will use online play, which makes it the third racing game we’ve seen this year take the online route.
But if you’re tired of racers, Sega has other titles in the works as well. One of the few arcade RPGs on the market, although it’s been limited to Japan as far as I know, Shining Force Cross
Not a direct screenshot but awesome nevertheless
is getting another update with Shining Force: Cross Road. They’ve added support for up to six players now, a new Elf species, new monsters, items, weapons and skills to make the game more complete and enjoyable. The new update will be released in “Winter 2010” and continues to use the RINGEDGE platform (this was the first title to use the arcade hardware). I’ll just take this opportunity to once again to express my desire about wanting an arcade RPG that’s not localized to Japan. It’s been over 10 years since Gauntlet Dark Legacy was released and since then there has been little else in the genre outside of Japan. There was Oriental Legend 2 but that also has no English translation and was in Chinese (excellent brawler/RPG though). We’ll keep holding out the hope here, someone has to be ballsy enough to give a try once again.
Sega also has a new version of their music title Project DIVA Arcade, the details of which are outlined in detail on this page. The update begins rolling out next week.
We’ve discussed Sega’s other titles they are bringing to the show on the site before: WCCF 2009-2010, Samurai Wars, Border Break 2.0, VF5 Final Showdown, Heat Up Hockey, Let’s Go Golf(formerly Go Go golf), the animated Transformer games for kids and even the new Let’s Go Kids Elephant game. If you’re wondering why GRID isn’t on the roster, the same thing happened with Sega Rally 3 since the game was developed outside of Japan.
JAMMA begins on the second week of September, we’ll be keeping our eyes open for any other JAMMA related news in the meantime.
Visit the Sega JAMMA website
Source:AM-Net
There are quite a few arcade games that have “Online Play” but the feature mysteriously disappears when they arrive in the West…….
I think in part there is still a reluctance for western operators to go online. Not bar owners but any other kind of arcade, they just don’t want to do it. It’s shown by Terminator which has free online features worldwide and still only about five locations have jumped on so far. Personally I don’t get it. Routes I understand but not dedicated locations. At least there is a Chuck E Cheese on there but I noticed that they are in the same area as the Raw Thrills HQ.
“The RINGEDGE powered game (no, not the mythical Sega game console made up by people who can’t read properly)…”
And boy… are they PERSISTENT about that crap too. There’s not one damn thing you can say that’ll convince them otherwise, that Sega is not coming out with a new console, and that Ringedge/Ringwide is an arcade platform. I just gave up after a while, and let reality take its course…
the issue is more fundamental about western adoption of on-line (connected) systems. the industry is loathed to embrace any additional expense, so they will not fund connectivity, secondly there is the issue of information sharing – many operators are worried that the information collected from the on-line system will be sent back to the distributor/manufacturer. you have to remember that the remaining amusement operators (that are not chains) are small independent operations that deal in cash and are incredibly secretive.
All that said, the benefits of connected machines are profound in the starved western amusement scene the Dave & Busters operation has been using swipe payment and ‘semi’ connected machines and seen vast operational profits. attempts to adopt e-AMUSEMENT (Konami), ALL.NET (Sega / Namco) and NESYS (Taito) have all proven difficult, hindered by distributors (worried about control) and operators (worried about access).
We have to look at Incredible Technologies success and the growing popularity of Raw Thrills’ ‘CoinUP’ to see that no matter the intransigence of the old trade, the new trade will adopt what works. I for one hope that Konami reappraise their plans for bringing e-AMUSEMENT to the west.
While I am completely willing to experiment with online features, the way the game handles it can be a deal breaker. I use CoinUp on two games at my location and I can’t say that’s it’s been a huge plus to my business, at least in the case of Big Buck Safari. For Terminator it’s just fine because it’s easy. But on Safari, people rarely read what it says, so they always choose online mode because it’s a bigger box, then are asked to fill in a bunch of screens, to which they just enter gibberish, thus they get stuck since it requires you to put in the exact same password twice. Then after all that it asks for more tokens that it didn’t advertise for originally. I’ve asked them to look into that last part since it’s misleading that it advertises one price then asks for more after you’ve been through a sign-up process made frustrating by the customers own lack of a desire to read. I have no clue why it works out OK in bars but I think that if they had a voice explaining what to do at each stage, people might understand what’s going on a little better as they understand it when I tell them what’s going on (by then they don’t want online mode since they just want to play and could care less about online stats). A cancel button in all of that would also be nice, as opposed to having to cock the gun until the timer runs out.
Honestly I think I am done with Online Safari, I’ve given it enough chances. No one ever participates in the tournaments no matter how often I talk about them. I will try out other online games in the future but I hope they aren’t needlessly confusing to the average arcade goer like BBH is.
Thanks Shaggy! I thought we were alone with that BBH situation. Our customers often want their money back and abandon play once it asks for that additional money. People are lazy, and do not want to take a minute to read before playing. Instant gratification seems to be what they are after, at least here in our U.S. west coast market.
This is a sticky one – as some of you may know Big Buck was developed by Play Mechanix for Incredible Technologies (golden tee guys) first – then after a falling out Raw Thrills / Betson took it. The same with the CoinUP system – I think the problem is that the Golden Tee influence (bar and tavern business) has shaped that games on-line feature. I also am unhappy at the lack of ‘backing out’ (cancel buttons) – seems the Raw Thrills guys like the money, and leave it to the owner to deal with the complaints!