Newsfeeds 1197-1200 via 
Let’s start May off with various bits of news that you may or may not care about. Most of these are about games in Japan so we will have to take them for what they are worth. This also brings us to 1200 stories submitted to us through The Stinger Report, as always we are grateful for their keen eye in finding arcade news from around the world. They provide the links, I provide the analysis as best as I can.
Newsfeed 1197 – Do you have a PS3 and would like a new arcade joystick by Taito that is based upon their Vewlix design? Well Amazon.jp has them on sale for a mere ¥30,001, which I’m seeing as about $375 USD. It’s not cheap but I don’t think that is entirely surprising given how much console arcade joysticks generally cost and then you have something like this with some of the best arcade quality parts inside. Pic via Kotaku Japan.
Newsfeed 1198 – 4Gamer.net has a rundown of a recent Sega location test on their new touchscreen music game MaiMai. I still have not been able to confirm at all whether this will be headed out West, which we heard about from a line at the end of a Diginfo News video on the game. This article described the game a little more then I have read before – there are eight buttons located around the touchscreen and the area above that has a place for “…possible cameras are in place at the top of the casing, play video up the video sites over the network.” Here is some video from the event:
Newsfeed 1199 – GameSpot Japan has an article discussing Sega’s new Shining Force Cross update, Elysion. If you are new to this, it is one of the few arcade RPGs out there right now – the only one I can think of actually in the realm of brand new, currently supported games. Sega has already released a few updates for it, this just being the latest one. The article in question has some discussion with a voice actress involved in the game and this video below.
Newsfeed 1200 – now for a piece of news not from Japan, but from some other part of the world known as Dubai (you might have heard of it before), a company called Emaar Retail is going to open up a 3600 sq. ft. Sega Republic Game Zone in the Dubai Marian Mall. That way you can get the arcade experience without the whole theme park experience, if that is preferred. I do wonder how well an arcade would do there by itself, considering the magnitude of theme parks that find themselves in the Dubai region. [Via PR2Live.com]
