The Bemani rhythm game brand might not be gaining steam out West anymore but if you are in Japan, Konami is doing plenty to keep it alive and well. They have announced a few new titles this week, first off a new direction for their GuitarFreaks and DrumMania games they are calling Gitadora (pictured). These look to be a bit more compact than previous GF/DM cabinets but are prototypes so who knows what they end up being for the final release, but I imagine it will be close. This image was taken from a Konami videocast that is about 2 hours long, you have to jump ahead to about 1hr:24min in to find the footage but they never pull back to show the cabinets in their entirety (earlier in the video for those interested is some footage of them playing some Steel Chronicle, which is pretty much Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon for arcades, with some unique joystick controllers and a touchscreen). You do get to see the guy pictured playing for a little bit though. I’m not an expert in GuitarFreaks so I don’t know just by looking at it if there are any dramatic differences from previous GF titles, aside from the pastel color theme it looks similar to what I have seen before. The location test announcement page for the games is here.
On top of that is a Konami game announced as testing over this weekend in Japan called Miraidagakki Future Tomtom, which from the picture is a drumming game for young people. (Source: AM-Net Blog)
As is standard operating procedure with Konami these days, these games will be seen mainly in Japan, probably in a few areas in Southeast Asia and there is a small possibility a couple can end up as imports out West.
wow when I heard there was a new GF/dm announced I assumed it was gonna be XG4… looks like I was wrong!
Miraidagakki Future Tomtom does sound kinda neat, though.
That games sounds like a lot of fun. But the last time I played a Donkey Kong Bongo it left my hands all raw…