It wasn’t long ago that we had a look at the amazing facility that recently opened in the City of Industry in Southern California known as Round 1 (read more about the location here if you missed it). The Japanese-owned company has a strong mix of games from all around the world and now they are the one known location in the US to have Konami’s GuitarFreaks XG & DrumMania XG. If you aren’t familiar with the GuitarFreaks and DrumMania series, they introduced the world to the concepts of instrument controllers, years before Guitar Hero or Rock Band did something similar (although not completely the same) on consoles.
Bemanistyle.com, who broke this story makes it clear that this is simply an imported game and there is no official support for these titles at present by Konami of America. But unlike most imports, changes have been made to the software so the US audience can appreciate all of the aspects of the game. I am sure that KoA will be taking a hard look at how these games do at Round 1 although it’s still unlikely at the moment that the games will be given an official release . Still, if you didn’t already have a reason to check out Round 1 there in SoCal then here is yet another reason. For more pictures and information on some of the other bemani games to be found at Round 1, check out BemaniStyle.