Newsbytes: Mortal Kombat Reunion, Japan Arcade Games On Test

It’s hard to believe we are pretty much at July already. Speaking of the date, yesterday was Atari’s anniversary which I think we could consider National Video Arcade Day. So Happy Belated Video Arcade Day everyone 😉

I have mentioned several times a video that I wanted to have up for E3 week. That still has not been published but it is very close. I am just waiting on one clip of an upcoming game and it will go live, it should be worth the extra wait. Hopefully that will happen this coming week.

Mortal Kombat Reunion – I just caught this picture on Facebook, the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield, IL hosted an event today that brought the original cast of Mortal Kombat back together. Here’s the photographic evidence, in case you were ever wondering what they look like today:

Japan Arcade Games On Test – This week has been big for various new arcade games getting some testing time in Japan. I don’t believe any of these titles are slated for a release outside of Japan but in case anyone is interested:

Konami has announced Baseball Heroes 2014, which uses data cards and networked machines. It pretty much falls into competing with Sega’s Card GEN MLB game, which did ok in Japan (it failed tests in the US) but only received a limited release. A nice crowd of people appeared for the BH2014 test, as seen at 4Gamer.net.

Konami’s Scotto is also back on test. This is an original spin on the beer pong concept where you can hit other sensors to score different points. I thought that this game had been mentioned on AH previously but I guess it wasn’t.

Konami also began testing a game which I think is for kids called Spin Gear Drive. It has an interesting and colorful cabinet setup, with four screens and a unique gear type controller which is probably just a variation on a spinner device.

Sega has a new version of Project DIVA they are testing called: Project DIVA Arcade Future Tone Version EA. They have added more features than just new songs like card collecting, additions/changes to scoring, Twitter connectivity and more which you can read about filtered through a translator here.

The newest version of Kohime Musou was on test this week, called Koihime †. Kohime Musou had been given a low-key kit release in the US via PentaVision Global but where this new one is being released in digital form only via Sega’s All.NET+ Multi, it seems unlikely the upgrade will find it’s way here. It could as an offline kit but it is a fighter game without a huge name which most places don’t have an appetite for(all-girl anime fighter as well, which seem to be hit or miss, leaning toward miss). [Website]

Like I said, Japan is busy with the location tests. I’m pretty sure there are loctests going on for new games in the US as well but those are rarely announced or used as a marketing ploy.