UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM – GUNSLINGER STRATOS 2 ANNOUNCED
Hello all and welcome to another weekend! In the Northern hemisphere now is the time we start looking towards the end of the summer and the colder change in temperatures depending upon where you find yourself. While enjoying the warm temps for as long as possible, make sure to visit your local arcade in the process. And for those in the US enjoying the last big holiday of the summer that anyone cares about, have a safe Labor Day.
This month I finally got my hands on some video editing software and so I’ve been working on learning how to use it. This should mean my trade show videos will be less “raw” now and I hope to do a few other things with it. Among those other things are some arcade game montages for some games released in 2011, 2012 and 2013. I have some self-promotion for my arcade book in there but apart from that I hope these prove useful in showing off some of the games the industry has to offer; I am working on a couple of other years as well as parts 2. My thanks to a couple of the companies that have provided some direct footage. Enjoy.
This week we have already mentioned that we are soon going to hear much more about games coming along in Japan. One of those is a new title from Konami, Winning Eleven Arcade Championship 2014. The game is testing at three locations in Japan starting today; I don’t imagine it will see much action, if any, outside of Japan but there was this survey ran not too long ago that makes you wonder if they have been thinking about bringing the game to Europe in a limited fashion.
Oh speaking of limited, I saw a Facebook post from a Raw Thrills VP that the Disney/Pixar Cars Arcade machine has been released. This is a fairly limited release to just Chuck E Cheeses apparently; the post states : “Go to Chuck E Cheese’s, play Pixar Cars Arcade, scan the QR code at the end of the race and share your high score with the world via Facebook and Twitter!” He then offered a link to this page showing the QR scores. All of the locations so far are CEC so its safe to say that if you want to try this game, check out a local CEC. I don’t recall QR codes being a part of the game at Amusement Expo ’13 but they did use that feature in Winter X Games Snocross.
Let’s wrap it up for now with happy rumor time. It’s been a while since we had any to talk about, not that we really entertain those very often – especially when they are just downright ridiculous. But this one seems ok, I just have never heard of the sources before. The claim is that in the unveiling of some new Namco product this week that Namco will be unveiling their next piece of arcade hardware called “System 478”. Some of the titles that will use the platform are supposedly Tekken 7, a new Gundam game, a sequel to Namco’s tank game called Tank! Tank! Tank! Tank! and another iDolmaster game. The sources for this rumor are here, here and here but I notice that if I click on the link for the original news(the 2ch site), it does not have the exact text that lists those games out. Either it was changed or someone is just making something up somewhere. I dunno. We’ll find out sometime in the next few weeks.
Part 2 Coming Soon?
But thinking it out – sure Namco could have a new System 4xx machine to power their next wave of games and the assumption is that it would be Playstation based since it follows the pattern of them turning Sony consoles into arcade-powering machines. Even if the rumor isn’t immediately true or has the wrong name, one has to figure that it will eventually be true given the history (start with Namco System 11). A Tekken 7 game also seems like a no-brainer at some point, same with Gundam. A sequel to Tank! Tank! Tank! would be welcome; the designers were very enthusiastic about it when they first had it at trade shows and it is a fun game. I just hope that some of the issues would be addressed, namely how thin it was in overall content (only two MP arenas and three mission levels; this was improved a little bit with an update that flips between two monster types every month). The WiiU release of the game had a lot more content to it and it was a shame that this wasn’t brought to the arcade side. So a sequel could address that and more; not to mention there will be another tank game on the market later this year with InJoy Motion’s Allied Tank Attack (which is in the 2013 montage video above).
UPDATE: This must have hit the newswires right after I published this post last night. I’m not used to looking for new game announcements coming out of Japan on their Saturday morning. Anyways, Square Enix has announced a sequel to their popular Gunslinger Stratos game. So far this game has only been released in Japan, although a cabinet made an appearance in the US at GDC’13 for some showing off. A teaser for Gunslinger Stratos 2 is below, no gameplay to show off at this point but at least gamers in Japan know for certain that its coming. I’m not sure what it would take for SE to really try the game out here, probably a partnership with one of the arcade manufacturers that are already setup for US production. And a lot of interest from gamers to make that a reality in the first place.
I find that with the contraction of the Japanese amusement trade the rumors have become more basic, if not monosyllabic.
The comment: “…their next piece of arcade hardware called “System 478″” Would seem strikingly obvious linked to NBG’s cost saving AC policy sharing Sony PS hardware cost reductions on their AC hardware.
We have yet to hear serious rumors from the SEGA JP distributor meeting last month, or the rumor of Nintendo re-entering the amusement scene?
I found Cars a couple weeks ago at my local movie theater. I didn’t have time to play it, however. I hope someone can confirm that it at least has a better framerate than what the attract mode shows.