This Week In Arcades – Location Tests and Trade Shows

Well that was a sudden slowdown in news, after the spurt we had with Batman Arcade and Star Trek pinball. Admittedly I have been partially distracted by the arrival of a Nintendo WiiU into my household (which at first came with a bad disc drive so I had to get it replaced – despite Nintendo customer service’s desire that I send it in for a repair. Yeah, waiting two weeks to repair a system I just got is not my idea of fun. The retailer was great though and exchanged it on the spot, which the N guy claimed they wouldn’t do). So I have been enjoying my new, working game system with a few of the games such as The Wonderful 101 or Wind Waker HD. I kind of wonder when the WiiU will be turned into an arcade board – Nintendoland has me thinking a little bit of the time when the arcade industry made fun mini-game compilations like Panic Park. NL is a fun game and better than Wii Sports was, although it obviously has not had the same marketing effect for the WiiU that the Wii enjoyed.

Anyways with my distractions aside, this week has been mostly devoid of arcade stories that are of import to the market in the Western hemisphere but there have been some happenings taking place in Japan, China and Europe. They are all brief enough that going with a post per item would have just been shovelware, so here’s a rundown:

JAPAN

Manufacturers have been quite busy in Japan testing out new games for the market there. Most of these games seem unlikely to have an overseas reach aside from imports which is why we’ve glossed over them until now. One exception should be Mach Storm by Namco, which we saw tested in the US earlier this year. That had another Japanese location test this week, with a blurry pic of the location test announcement board as proof.

Sega was busy with testing a new video medal game called World of the Three Kingdoms, they also have begun testing the Sega Nu powered Project DIVA Arcade Future Tone. I still wonder if Sega will give this series further testing in the US or not. They also seem optimistic about a risky move they are taking with the Free2Play puzzle game Puyo! Quest Arcade. I’m sure a lot of eyes are watching how that does, given the fad that F2P games have become in the mobile and home game console scene. Also something to be on the lookout for today in Japan is the new MOSS shooter, Caladrius(pictured), available on Sega’s ALL.NET+ Multi network enabled arcade cabinets.

Since Konami quietly dropped support for the arcade market outside of Asia, we haven’t heard much from them but they are still busy making games for their strongest markets. This week they tested out ColorCoLotta which is some sort of tropical medal game and announced that the new Winning Eleven Arcade Championship 2014 will be available in January 2014.   They also just announced a Japanese-centric competition for their various arcade titles, which they simply call the Konami Arcade Championship 2013. While it may not be the most riveting title for a tournament, the number of games involved is sure to generate some excitement at various participating Japanese game centers.

Atlus also has begun testing out their new version of the Persona fighting game, Persona 4 di Arcade (pictured below). That will also come to consoles but a few Japanese arcades will get a brief time to enjoy the upgrade. This link has various details as to what is different about it.

Speaking of fighters, Arc Systems’ Guilty Gear Xrd also had a 2nd location test announced for Nov. 2nd. Their first test drew in some big crowds so I’m sure they expect more of the same the 2nd time around.

EUROPE

There was an amusement trade show that took place this past week at Porte de Versailles in France called EAS2013. We would have had a post about it then but the information coming out of the show has been a trickle, at best. I had hoped that Sega would have unveiled the Transformers arcade machine but that must have been held back for IAAPA in November. Still, it was a good show for those involved, Sega stated that it “exceeded their expectations“. More pictures can be found on their Facebook page.

You will notice in the above picture to the left that K.O. Drive showed up again. I have sent an email to Sega asking about what is going on with that game – it was supposed to be released this Summer but it’s Fall and as far as I know, it still is only found at trade shows. This game was first unveiled in May 2012 so I have to imagine that it should be ready to go, unless it is testing badly and they have to make some further tweaks to it.

Also at the booth, the inevitable Typhoon VS Dream Raiders match-up. Personally I don’t know what the big deal is with the Typhoon and why it’s constantly at the top of the charts since it is not interactive. For me, Dream Raiders wins hands-down.

Here’s a video showing 15 min of floor walkaround. To the gentlemen arguing with me in my email box this week that no new releases exist in Europe, I offer this video and post as more counter-proof:

CHINA

There was another trade show that is taking place in China, the GTI Asia China Expo 2013. Perhaps a follow-up to this post will happen, if more details begin to flow from the event but so far these two pictures are all I have been able to gather up. The first has representatives from InJoy Motion and Barron Games (the latter company has become a partner of InJoy’s in the USA and is carrying some of their products here) standing in front of a single seat version of the new Allied Tank Attack. The full launch of ATA will be taking place at IAAPA2013.

This picture is from Twitter showing that Konami is reaching further into the Chinese market, probably looking to cut off the various clones as best they can.

ELSEWHERE

The classic game restoration business, TNT Amusements, has created a lot of videos showing off some pretty rare cabinets. This week they showed off a Sente Immersion, it was something of a multi-game system well before the existence of the Neo Geo although its library was comparatively lackluster and mostly terrible. The idea of the “immersion” effect is cool though, something that had been done previously by Centuri when they released epileptastic Tunnel Hunt.

Finally, Adam Savage, one of thet stars of the popular Discovery Channel TV show MythBusters released a video this week where he shows off his favorite video game, a Millipede arcade cabinet by Atari. Enjoy.