Earlier this year a video by Diginfo News covered a new music game released by Sega Japan called Maimai. At the very end of the video which was covering the Japanese game release, they mentioned that Sega “subsequently plans to release it overseas as well” but after that we had not heard a thing about the overseas release. Until now.
Apparently Sega released the International version of Maimai, which is translated into English to some Southeast Asian markets in September 2012 but they did not really broadcast that news so we did not hear about it until now. According to John Chiok who has provided us with the information, “Basically, it’s the exact same thing as the Japanese version of the game… except the language of the game is in English (to cater to an international audience). Card reader functionality is available for machines connected to the SEGA ALL.NET service (i.e. currently online in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia; more to follow). Also, a proprietary video camera module (c/o SEGA) can be installed to allow upload of video recordings to the internet.”
I have a hunch that the ALL.NET and camera functionality parts could certainly hold it back from full support out West as currently none of Sega’s arcade titles in the Western Hemisphere use ALL.NET, at least any since the release of Extreme Hunting 2 back in 2006. There also is the question of cost as getting a pair of these with all of the bells and whistles can be an issue although I have not seen what the exact price is on a Maimai unit. There was a recent upgrade to Maimai as well, which is called Maimai Plus and apparently a location in the Philippines where Mr. Choik is at has the Plus version, in English.
At the very least there are some out there and perhaps like it was done with DDR originally, all it will take is someone with the budget to import a pair to the US and see how it does, although I’m sure that one or both of the Round 1 USA locations in California will have one (unless they do already!). Otherwise Sega has not dropped any hints at bringing it elsewhere, it is not listed as coming to EAG 2013 so far and it wasn’t at IAAPA 2012 either.
There are videos of the game being played on Youtube, here is one and also a link to the official Sega Maimai English site.
Of course now the question is, where are the English versions of Border Break?
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Lirodon
They’d probably have to localize the soundtrack though; para-para type stuff isn’t really that big with the “mainstream” audience.
tl;dr put Starships and = instant sales