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Anyone who has followed this blog for a while knows that I have a connection with Brazil, last year I made a trip down there to visit with my wife’s family and in the process I checked out some arcades (called fliperamas there) in the greater Belo Horizonte area. As the Brazilian economy improves little by little, that opens the door for amusement to expand, which can still do well there. The problem I saw while there are bootleg cabinets, particular of popular properties like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Street Fighter IV. But there were plenty of officially licensed games I ran into so it’s not all bootlegs. There is amusement expo they hold every year in Brazil, usually in the mega-city of São Paulo called Salex. Salex 2011 took place just a few weeks ago to show off some new products, which we can catch a glimpse off in the videos below.Also speaking of conventions, AAMA is this week, expect some new game announcements any day now.
First off is a video by HawTian, who manages to visit pretty much every amusement show on the planet no matter where it is. If there ever is a show in Antartica, I’m sure these guys will be there. He doesn’t get up close to the machines but you can catch a glimpse of a few games we know about (as well as some which I have no idea what they are, possibly new games produced just in Brazil which I would like to find out more about) such as a setup of eight Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Arcade units right at the beginning of the video. Seeing how popular Sega still in Brazil (last I checked there is still a company there that was producing brand new Sega Genesis games for the market there) it makes sense for them to offer the arcades they have to venues there. There are a few more racing game to the right of those but I can’t tell what they are exactly. There is a brief glimpse at a game producer based in Brazil towards the beginning called Coringa Diversoes. They seem to be good at making cabinets but original content, not so much. They make Guitar Hero and Kinect Adventures bootlegs. About a minute in you can see some unique cabinets for existing racing games, companies really like to do that for racers down there, I saw a few examples for that, including a neat one for Crusin’ USA at a mall. Only problem is the cabinets take up a much large amount of space than your normal racer. 1:13 in you can see Super Bikes 2 and a Brazilian-made racing title, Senninha GP. Also about 3:15 in is a new Brazilian made racer which I think it called Formula Trovão (Formula Thunder). It’s a dual player game, kind of like Hummer MDX but the glimpse we get is very brief and I haven’t had any luck yet finding out who makes it. 3 min. in we start seeing some familiar games; 6 min in there’s a House of the Dead 4, Harley Davidson, a few other racing games and way in the back a surprise – a Silent Hill Arcade. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the only one in Brazil but it is official in case you were wondering.
This video is choppy but shows a number of products, mostly kiddie rides, cranes and such. I do catch a few arcades here, including some sort of Kinect cabinet which looks quite professional but I have my doubts about it’s full legality as they aren’t the only ones who brought something like that to Salex. But seeing how an Xbox 360 is quite expensive in Brazil(I remember the original Xbox costing $3000 Reiais, which even converted to USD was way overinflated) this is probably the only way most will get a chance to see Kinect in action – not that such circumstances excuse piracy. It’s about 3:30 in, along with some unique kind of Pump It Up kit along with some other stylish cabs. I ran into a few of these when I was down there and they were actually rather nice. Unique Ghost Squad cab is 3:34 in. It’s hard to see at this point but to the right of the Pump It Up in this vid, Also, one of those bootleg SFIV cabinets I saw down there last time can be seen about 3 min in – right behind a Namco Deadstorm Pirates machine (not bootlegged fortunately). Although about five minutes in is a Barbercut clone called Fancy Cutter II
This is the only video that spends a decent amount of time focusing on just one game, Corrida Virtual (Virtual Race)
