It has been a very slow week for news although it is always a bit slow for arcade related stuff when school is out. Most new products are launched around March/April and they tend to pad things out through the Summer.
One game that is occasionally found in arcades is the foosball table. It is probably more common to find lower grade foosball in home gamerooms but there are some commercial grade manufacturers out there that create coin-op foosball. I can’t remember the last time I ran a story about a new foosball table on AH; We don’t hear about new developments from these companies very often as it seems like there isn’t much else you can do with it other than change up how the cabinet looks.
Barron Games International shows that foosball can enjoy the benefits of some modern technology with their freshly announced World Tour Foosball. This features flashing LED lights that will change color depending on what happens in-game; sound fx, a glass enclosed field, raised corners (known as European Style foosball), LED score counters and a cool automatic ball release system. The game will make its industry debut next week at the Bowl Expo in Las Vegas that starts next Thursday. Here is a quick video of the table in action:
What are your thoughts about this?
Quite simple but effective take on football table (we don’t call it foosball in the UK) and the flashing really give quite an atmosphere with in the game and the ball appearing from the ground being raised is just brilliant. Makes me wonder how far you could take the football table concept further like what namco did with the hockey table Big Bang smash.