AOU 2011 Day 1

Here’s a new batch of images to come out of AOU 2011 that is now taking place in Japan. We’re not able to be there personally but there is quite a bit of coverage from the event from the many game news sites located in Japan. Hit the post break for the images to see some of the latest content Japanese arcade makers are working on, including shots of the new Let’s Go Island 3D, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Chaos Code, a new version of Virtua Fighter 5 and more!

First up, here’s a walk around AOU by akihabaranews. In this 10 minute video we get to see many games that we talked about below but haven’t seen in action – Maximum Heat 3D, Super Mario Bros. Wii World Coins, Dragon Ball Zenkai, and others.

Please note that much more will be on it’s way over the next day or so. I haven’t seen much yet of either Konami or Taito so stay tuned for those. Many more videos are indeed online now at the day 2 post, so take a look here.

SEGA

Let’s Go Island 3D – We found out about this recently but here’s the impressive space that Sega setup for the game, showing off their big-screen 3DTV technology, no glasses necessary. We’ve said before that this is really the only way for the 3D craze to take off in arcades and it looks like Sega has managed it. AM-Net is showing a cost of 2.1 million yen, which is roughly $25k USD. While a high price, it’s actually lower than some 3D games we’ve seen in Japan like RoadFighters which was going for something like $35k and that required glasses. This uses a full stereoscopic 3DTV that is 52″ in size. It will be released in Japan this July. You can also see Sega MLB Card Gen 2010 to the right.

Via AM-Net

One from 4Gamer.net

Sega Card Gen MLB 2010. This is what happens when an interesting game doesn’t test well in the USA – it goes to Japan instead. It’s too bad really. You can read about the history on this game here.

Sega additionally showed off a video of yet another new version of Virtua Fighter 5, VF5 Final Showdown Version A.

They and FK Digital also have a new 2D fighter they are showing off called Chaos Code. This uses Ringwide hardware and will be out in Japan this August.

Out: Virtual horse betting. The New Hotness: Betting on virtual boat racing (StarBoat by Sega)!

OK I take that back. There is still plenty of love for virtual horse betting (StarHorse 3):

NAMCO

Or should that be Bandai Namco Games now? Their booth as seen at 4Gamer.net:

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (official site). First is a new trailer, which shows off allt he new features the game has, from the new card system, to character customization, weapon use, arena deformations, team ranking then some flyer scans by AM-Net. I wonder when they will be showing Street Fighter X Tekken?

New screenshots via 4Gamer:

Regarding that new card system being used on TTT2, here is an official site for that, it’s called Banapassport and it will be used on not just Tag 2 but also the new Dragonball Z arcade game and a new version of Gundam (pictured below, via Game Watch).

Speaking of a new version of Gundam, it’s called Mobile Suit Gundam Battlefield Rev3. This uses those famous pods but now it will sport new projection screens for 1920×1080 resolution, running on Namco’s PC-based ES1 hardware. Details via AM-Net.

Also the 3D update to Dead Heat, Maximum Heat was on-hand (Game Watch):

Here’s a pic of the new Dragonball Zenkai game Namco will release later this year (via DengekiOnline):

KONAMI

Their new Jubeat Copious version update will come out this summer:

Dengeki Online has some pictures of the Konami booth including Hello PopN’Music and the new Jubeat being played. They also have a railway simulator there which looks somewhat interesting.

A video I found via Gigazine of Jubeat being played:

OTHER

Last up, here is a shot showing the new Koihime Dream Arcade Edition running on some Galaxy cabs (4Gamer):

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9 comments

Arcades4ever February 18, 2011 at 2:53 pm

Speaking of capcom x namco Weren’t there suppose to be a virtua fighter v tekken in development as the 2 companies seemed interested at one point. I really think they should release tekken tag 2 everywhere unlike what happened with tekken 6 where they didn’t want to release it but they should release it and let it lap it up for operators and then the home version should come out.

I’m surprised that let’s go island is cheaper than road fighters and I would rather not wear the glasses. I see that dead heat uses glasses couldn’t namco just put glasses on the existing cabinets? Though to be honest I wish it was a 3D screen with pout the need for glasses for dead heat. All arcade games need to use 3D screen noes while the iron is still hot over the consoles other than 3DS but that’s too small anyway for now

arcadehero February 18, 2011 at 3:22 pm

My guess is that VF X TKN fell thorugh and then Namco approached Capcom and Capcom was interested so they did that instead. Maybe we still will see VF X TKN, if the other games are successful.

I agree that Namco should find a way to get TTT2 out everywhere. Learn from the mistakes made with T6 and go from there. They will need a 2p cabinet (I see that so far they are showing this in the one-person-per-cabinet config) and a good price – I think if they can get it in under $10k then it will be fine. Since they will most likely release TTT2 on consoles anyways, let that cover the dev costs instead of making the arcade version pay for it but then again, maybe there is more to it all than that.

One thing I wonder about the new 3D tech Sega has developed is if they could make smaller screens for even better prices – 32″ and 42″ displays. Why not? Now is the time to push non-glasses 3D I think and arcades will have a huge advantage for a while over home consoles in this regard since these kinds of displays just aren’t selling that well to consumers yet. In the case of Dead Heat, you would need more than the 3D glasses to mount to the cabinet, they would have to switch out the monitors as well I believe. I doubt we’ll see a kit but who knows. the one problem I have with Maximum Heat is that the glasses while rugged looking are also bulky.

editor February 18, 2011 at 4:08 pm

The Capcom vs Namco is still in the ‘works’ – it got moved to a back burner with the Sega vs. Namco announcement last year.

Regarding glasses – the amusement trade dose not like having to have a supply of glasses loose so the main R&D is on glass-free (naked 3-D).

Regarding a international presentation for the new Tekken – fat chance – the US has closed the door on this and the 3-D MH driver.

Surprised no one has picked up on the new Namco name yet?

Arcades4ever February 19, 2011 at 4:48 pm

Do you mean bandai namco when you say new name? As for the next tekken I think we have more of a better chance then the US unfortunately it will be London which is nowhere near me although some namco arcades will also more than likely have tekken 7 since manchesters namco station had tekken 6 and still do

Arcades4ever February 19, 2011 at 2:29 am

I don’t see why they need to rush out the console version anyway, they should give it lots of time and if it gets delayed it’s ok and will have the arcade version to fall back on by selling more units. I wonder if tekken 7 will be the first in the series to use 3D with out the glasses of course? They’d miss a good opportunity if they didn’t especially as lots of people don’t have a 3D TV since most will have just got HD sets.

60Hz February 19, 2011 at 11:49 am

Any sightings of lets go jungle 3d stateside (preferably in california)… really curious after watching tihs vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEhICR0OwoM

Joe February 22, 2011 at 1:48 am

Still no word on what hardware Koihime Dream is on?

Chaos Code looks interesting, but looks like a doujin game.

Joe February 22, 2011 at 1:54 am

Nevermind, answered my own question.

http://www.4gamer.net/games/128/G012870/20110218022/screenshot.html

Looks to be running on new NEO STANDARD hardware. Looks relatively low-end so it hopefully will be cheap.

Uses SSD. Trying to avoid piracy? Seems unnecessary otherwise… though I suppose getting rid of the spinning disk of death in a high-heat environment would be helpful.

JAMMA + JVS which is nice.

Looking better every second!

arcadehero February 22, 2011 at 8:13 am

Ah nice find, I overlooked that. It’s nice that someone out there is developing some new hardware every now and then.

SSD is becoming more popular, Sega’s Ringedge uses it, Ringwide uses CF. The Tokyo Drift kits I have use USB Flash drives instead of HDDs too. Part of it is the failure rate of HDDs but also HDDs are usually very large for one small game – Big Buck Safari has an 80GB HDD in it but the game itself only takes up a total of 5GB so it’s kind of a waste. On a multi-game thing like NESiCA then I can understandusing a large HDD but for single games there’s not much point to it anymore.