Betson Enterprises has just issued a press release and it holds good news for US DDR fans. Japanese players have been enjoying the latest iteration of DDR since July this year and come December, it will be officially released in the US. The game has seen extensive and “very successful” testing at an FEC in New Jersey(click here for previous coverage on that) and it also will be at Betson’s IAAPA booth in a few weeks. I will be at the show and will certainly grab some video of the game in action there.
The big question that surrounds X2 would have to be the pads – the US version DDRX had some very notable problems in the pads which caused a revolt among DDR fans. As was covered in a post regarding the NJ location test, that problem has been addressed and the press release also addresses this question with the following line: “Anticipating a lot of usage, the dance floor has been re-engineered to endure the high volume of play associated with this wildly successful product.” Thus, players should be able to rest easy in this regard and can focus on the new game features instead of worrying about responsive pads.
As for those features, the press release also gets into those as well – the game will have over 400 songs to choose from with 70 new additions to the roster, USB ports, keypads and even e-Amusement support(according to an initial report). It also has a new mode for novice players (called Happy Mode) and a mode for the pros (called Pro Mode). Check out the press release by clicking below.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
DDRX2 – Ready for Prime Time
Carlstadt, NJ – October 26, 2010 – After very successful weeks on test in a large Family Entertainment Center in Northern NJ, Betson Enterprises – exclusive Konami Distributor for North America and Canada, proudly declares that DDRX2 is ready for prime time. This new hit Game will be making its way to locations all over the country starting in early December.
Konami Digital Interactive has gone through great lengths to develop their latest edition of DDR with both the novice and hard-core players in mind. Novice players can get right into the action by selecting “Happy Mode” while hard-core players can select “Pro Mode” that will allow them to customize their game experience to their skill set. Player adjustments in Pro Mode include “arrow speed adjustment”, “hidden/sudden steps” and “risky” all three designed to challenge players like no other version of DDR – EVER! Anticipating a lot of usage, the dance floor has been re-engineered to endure the high volume of play associated with this wildly successful product.
“With DDR being recognized as the “preferred platform” by players from around the world, there will always be demand for this product!” stated Tony Maniscalco Sales Manager Betson Proprietary Products. Konami has also added 70 all-new songs, combined with a huge library of DDR Dance hits from previous editions to bring the total DDRX2 song catalog to well over 400 songs. Stalwart Bemani fans are anxious to bust some new moves on this highly anticipated new release.
Please visit Betson at Booth # 1406 at the upcoming IAAPA Trade Show in November to preview the latest version of DDRX2 from Konami.
For more information on the show or the new DDRX2 contact us at 201-438-1300 ext. 3408 or email us at info@betson.com.
About Betson Enterprises
Headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey, Betson Enterprises with 11 distribution offices nationwide is the leading distributor of coin operated amusement and vending equipment, coin operated parts, and service in the United States. With over 75 years of experience and leadership in the coin-operated industry, we will help you make informed decisions that are best for your business.
Betson offers entertainment and vending solutions for your business through our relationships with the operator community. For locations looking for a simple and profitable solution or vendors looking for equipment that fits any situation, Betson Enterprises can help you. Betson Enterprises has an industry proven reputation for quality
and customer focuses. For more information on Betson Enterprises, visit www.betson.com, email us at info@betson.com or just call 1-800-524-2343. Download the Betson product catalog at http://flipflashpages.uniflip.com/1/24957/44024/pub/index.html
hopefully the software issue with the steps becoming offsync with the song towards the ending will be fixed. this issue was known during the first private test bemanistyle received and has been present at the NJ test and both tests in UK.
one of the UK tests has a later build than what we saw at the private test and NJ test which still had the lag present.
Will you or anyone from BemaniStyle be making it to IAAPA? If not I’ll be sure to check into that.
unfortunately i always seem to miss this show every year ;/
stupid money.
so yeah if you can check that would be great ;D
also maybe ask about e-Amusement. the machines are capable, but there has been no real confirmation on if they will ever provide the service to anyone. seeing as 75% of the game content in Japan is unlocked by e-Amusement its a huge feature for these newer DDR titles. even though we get unlock codes, they take away from the fun of unlocking things as an individual as e-Amuse tracks your scores and levels you up by achievements. since there is no offline support, so many features are just locked out to the US/EU.
At least next year IAAPA will be in Vegas again. That will make it much easier for me to get to, I almost didn’t buy the tickets for this year as money has been tight but I decided to dig down and go. I’ve never been to Orlando so it should be interesting.
I will find out about e-amusement. I know it’s unlikely but I have to think that many operators who get X2 would be inclined to connect it to the internet if e-amuse is available. That or fans should make an effort to push operators to connect their machines. I don’t entirely understand why so many ops still shun online machines – there are around 10,000 Terminator machines out there, with free online and yet only about four or five locations (mine is one of them) have bothered to connect their machine. At the moment the top 100 leaderboards are dominated by people at a Chuck E. Cheese in Illinois. :\
Are you sure that there are 10000 terminator machines out there? That number seems a little bit too high. Do you have data proving those numbers? If it is true that is very impressive.
Thanks,
Juan
Didn’t Editor say on an earlier article most operators are secretive and deal in cash, therefore they do not like the idea of data being transfered via online features?
Seems you guys have been having some fun while I have been away. Some observations:
– Raw Thrills / Play Mechanix have only quoted an initial run of 5,000 Terminators out there – I have not heard the 10,000 number yet?
– There are however over 10,000 connected machines on the COINUP (BBH, TS, etc)
– yes I did say that operators do not like sharing information, but the operator of the COINUP system (Raw Thrills) have been given some latitude.
Regarding DDRX2 – we all had been promised much at the UK and NJ tests. I made a point of holding back on reporting the bugs witnessed at the tests as I was promised that the tests would be used to address all issues (against the promises last time). Now it seems that rather than using test data the companies are carrying on regardless.
If this is the case – I give fair warning – I will not hold back, especially as KDE seems to be dropping staff that had worked hard on cultivating these player contacts!
Well let me clarify – that number was quoted to me by a sales representative at a distributor. I’ve talked with them before and not had a reason to doubt what they said although they said it was nearing 10,000 sales, not having quite made it there yet. That was before the 32″ version of the game was made available as well. But it’s possible that the number could be inflated. I apologize for not mentioning all of that earlier.