Japanese arcade games have been grabbing the headlines a lot lately and while this post just solidifies that, we don’t have to worry in the West – Summer typically has very few Western game announcements, which are saved for later in the year. Sometimes we get a couple in August but most everything hits in November during IAAPA, which is the E3 of the arcade industry.
But if you are a gamer in Japan then there is plenty to celebrate as Capcom has made it clear that they are embracing their arcade roots once again. After the industry downturn around 2001-2004, Capcom’s Japanese arcade division was fairly quiet beyond Street Fighter IV. They completely closed the USA arcade division around 2001 but perhaps if their new efforts gain some traction, we will begin seeing Capcom’s name show up on new US games once again.
For two new Capcom arcade games that were released this week on the Japanese market:
Luigi Mansion Arcade – Unveiled last year, we found out in February that Sega also was helping Capcom out with this. With news that Dave & Busters is testing out just about every Japanese arcade game they can get their hands on, I think this one has a very good chance of testing in the US with a solid chance of that leading to distribution here. Sega Amusements needs something in the area of light-gun games to follow-up Transformers (apart from giving Transformers the R360 treatment) and given the strong brand recognition that this series has, it should be a perfect fit. Here is a new trailer for the game that Capcom launched the other day – I do wonder if the frame rate is just something from the video or if that is how it really is as unless they are using Ringwide hardware, this should be screaming along at 60FPS.
Crossbeats REV. Arcade – Also on Capcom’s plate is a new rhythm game by DDR creator Naoki Maeda. Mr. Maeda released this very brief video note about the game launching in the arcade today. As a touchscreen rhythm game, Crossbeats is not alone on the market with titles like ReRave Plus, Namco’s upcoming Synchronica and Capcom’s other touchscreen music game Cytus but Mr. Maeda has already mentioned that the possibility of CR making it over to the USA is strong (at least as location test at Round1USA or Dave & Busters).
What are your thoughts on these new developments by Capcom?
[Discuss below or on our social media channels: Facebook / Twitter / G+]
