Another weekend, another weekend post. I have a couple of things in the works coming soon – first that video I promised a month ago will be posted this next week. I was trying to get some footage of some unannounced new games but that hasn’t worked out like I had hoped so I will just have to go with what I got. It will still be fun.
Also, I am finally working on doing some AH merchandise. I have been working on a few ideas to come up with some cool things with a help of a friend and next week I will have some great stickers stocked up. I will hold off on launching the whole thing until I have a varied selection ready to go so this is more of a heads-up as to what is coming. I hope fans of the site/arcades-in-general will enjoy them, I’m trying to do more than just slap an AH logo on things, some of it is with a sense of humor that is related to arcades.
Anyways, for some of your weekend news.
Ubisoft & Alterface Team Up For Rabbids Invasion – Ubisoft doesn’t show up in amusement news very often since they are primarily a home format company but as they have expanded in size they have found interest in doing more for the out-of-home entertainment sector. Enter in Belgium-based company Alterface, which we have mentioned previously for their Gamebox 5Di unit. The two companies have partnered up to create a new interactive 4D “dark ride” based upon Ubisoft’s popular Rabbids franchise.
As a dark ride, this is meant more for theme parks to enjoy than arcades but it still is out-of-home entertainment; it will work out like a moving multiplayer light-gun game. According to the website announcing the partnership, “ This state-of-the-art interactive dark-ride will use Alterface Projects’ signature 4D Shooter Technology, which allows the players to actually see the projectiles being thrown from their gun into the video game.” To give you an idea of how a dark ride works, here is one of Alterface’s previous DR projects called Maus Au Chocolat, so far they have not unveiled how the Rabbids Dark Ride will look yet:
EVO 2014 – If you are curious to follow EVO 2014 news, here is a link. I don’t spend much time on it anymore since it is more of a console game event now but there are always some arcade influences going on there.
R-Kaid Unit – Via Joystiq, this is the R-Kaid-R. It’s a portable game box that has an arcade kind of design to it and it certainly carries an arcade-level price tag of only €2,499. Here’s a video.
I find it mind boggling that instead of having well tuned arcade cabs at evo people lug their $150+ joystick from event to event. Great for the joystick companies i guess, but i find it a bit bass-ackward… i’m glad japan hasn’t followed that nonsense.