Combo News: WMMT4, Doodle Jump, Taiko No Yakuza + More

I’ve got a few stories that I’ve been keeping in blogpost pergatory of sorts, not sure if I should dedicate a full post to them or not. I’ve decided on the latter, going with a combo post.

These cover Stinger Newsfeeds 1245-49 as they are links sent in by TSR.

Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 4 Coming To South Asia On a Rental Basis

This is actually not new – we shamefully overlooked it from a few months ago. I’m a little surprised that we weren’t tipped on it, seeing how often we have heard something about WMMT4. Fans of Namco’s Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune series have been eagerly awaiting word on whether or not the game would be getting an English translation – which seemed likely since previous versions of the game have but time has passed without much news in that regard, until now at least. But how those machines will be made available is going to happen in an unexpected way.

I should begin by stressing that this news won’t affect the end player and it currently only applies to southeast Asian territories from Hong Kong to Australia. This does not apply out West where there is still no word on a release although what is happening here seems to be Namco’s way of preventing any imports from showing up overseas. What is happening, according to Highway Entertainment which sells arcade equipment to the region in question, is that the game will be made available to operators there on a rental basis – they will not own the machines and instead they will work on a revenue sharing basis with Namco. This does mean that it will be a low cost to get the machines – operators have to pay an initial setup cost but not the entire cost of the machine. But as they don’t own it and distributors won’t carry it, that means imports won’t be happening. At the very least players in these areas will get their hands on the game finally but what the deal is in going to this length to keep the machine from reaching the West I can’t say I completely understand at this point. Perhaps it is still on the table and something will be different in regards to the online portion of it that needs to be addressed. I could imagine that if Namco were to do the same sort of revenue sharing setup in the US that a lot of locations might jump on that opportunity since games like WMMT3 cost about $20,000 to setup for a pair of units so avoiding that would be quite nice. But it would cause potential problems with existing distribution channels who rely on machine sales. For now, those of us in the West will just have to continue to wait and see.

Doodle Jump Coming To Arcades

When it comes to videmption coverage there is sort of a method to my madness – on games that can switch between ticket only or play only I tend to give these more attention. If it is a ticket only game, not so much.

The newest videmption title comes from ICE and Raw Thrills called Doodle Jump which is a popular game available on various phones for .99¢.  It sort of reminds me of one of the mini-games from the old Atari 2600 game Swordquest: Earthworld. You jump on platforms trying to keep from falling below the bottom of the screen, seeking to reach some goal towards the top. There are different types of platforms, such as ones that break beneath you or ones that have springs for extra high jumping and so on. How this arcade version will differ I imagine is in terms of length since you are just trying to win more tickets (whether it has a no ticket play mode isn’t known at the moment) but if you want something that is more along the lines of a classic style game that is quite simple then this could be up your alley.

Sega’s Yakuza 5 Let’s You Play Namco’s Taiko No Tatsujin

To the those that know what Taiko No Tatsujin is, it might be referred to as that “huge drum game”. Like many arcade music games from Japan, it has a bunch of iterations, the latest is the 14th installation in that series I believe. It’s not something a lot of Westerners will have played but if you are looking to get Sega’s new Yakuza 5 console game, you can visit a Club Sega arcade facility and play the game. Sure, you won’t have the huge drums to beat up thus missing out on that hardware part of it but it’s a little collaboration that will be appreciated as a nice touch. I guess we can call this version Taiko No Yakuza. Via AndriaSang

Speaking of Takio No Tatsujin, one of the developers of that game recently discussed the challenges of correcting input lag, particularly with new LCD monitors. 4Gamer has the story.

Pianocade Synthesizer

I could swear that I have seen something a lot like this before. Sadly my brain fails me at finding the previous reference. Via Venturebeat

Oh look, another 60-in-1 cabinet to yawn about

I was going to leave this one in the thresher but then it started getting a lot of attention online. This attention baffled me as I didn’t see anything special going on here. Perhaps I’m jaded because I’ve seen thousands of arcade cabinet examples over the years so seeing yet another minimalist design doesn’t get me all excited. I would probably care if the software was unique but instead its one of those 60-in-1 JAMMA deals you get from places like Hong Kong or Cambodia.    Source