I found it too busy to throw out a newsbytes post last week but I’m ready to go for this weekend. I would have had a podcast up for today but I need more editing time to be able to handle it. Probably next Monday. In the mean time, here are some arcade items to chew over:
Podcast #7 – Due to a weird technical problem that rendered a podcast attempt unusable, we re-recorded this episode with Sara Zielinski, the “Arcade Photographer” and founder of the Sega R360 Facebook fan page. We talk news(from Disney Tsum Tsum to Skycurser), what’s been going on in our neck’s of the woods, Star wars Premium, Transformers Special and more. Enjoy!
How The F.B.I. Made “Winners Don’t Use Drugs” Article – I’ve thought about doing an article like this before but my procrastination means that someone else beat me to it :P. If you ever have wondered how those famous “Winners Don’t Use Drugs” arcade screens came about, then read this article over at Inverse.com. This is perhaps the most famous PSA to ever show up in arcades – some companies like Capcom tried to preach about recycling for a little while in the 90s but that never was as wide-spread as the drugs PSAs. I’m not aware of any PSAs existing on modern arcade titles – I doubt the F.B.I would care much about relaunching that campaign again. I am curious though – for anyone that saw those on arcade machines through the 90s, did it have any effect on you?
DDR 2015 Boot-Up – This might indicate how slow the news week has been but thanks to Jdevy for the tip on this phone video showing DDR 2014/15 booting up. It is a little surprising to see that they are still using Windows XP although as far as I know, Sega still is (Transformers Human Alliance is XP); InJoy Motion is too and probably Taito.
Golden Tee 2016 Marketing Continues To Ramp Up – This week Incredible Technologies has released more footage of their upcoming arcade title, Golden Tee 2016. Among changes coming to this year’s launch is they are apparently going to release the Home Edition at the same time as the commercial version. Usually there is a waiting period of a month or two but they must have the factory ready to churn the updates out to make everyone happy.
New Shirt – Yeah I’ve got nothing else, so here’s a link to my latest T-Shirt added to TeePublic. 😛
Name That Game #54 – NTG 53 was super easy, which made up for the super hard 52 which had zero guesses. Perhaps this time I’ll find some middle ground. The answers for last week just in case:
#3 – Fax by Exidy
For this week:
1 Space Dungeon?
2 Dynamite Duke
3 Freeze?
Despite the fact DDR uses Windows XP is not as concerning to what is required to operate the game. What still really worries me about DDR 2015 is the likely online requirement to allow the game to work. Simply put the game requires e-Amusement (Konami’s arcade online game network) to keep adding new content.
Now posts on Bemanistyle and DDR Facebook Groups have confirmed the game does work in an offline mode state for a limited time (the game’s e-Amusement features must sync with the Japanese servers at the very inconvenient time of 1pm to 3pm PST so it goes offline during that time. There is no evidence the game can run independantly without the e-Amusement service (and I know that the last 2 versions in Japan absolutely required an active connection [would not even work in offline mode]). Even if the game does release to allow to work in offline mode, a high majority of songs that have been released in the last two years would be inaccessible and operators would have griping hardcore players making a fuss over it.
It also should be noted from what I know of Konami’s e-Amusement service is that it is not cheap to subscribe to. Last I heard it costs like $200 a month to subscribe to this service. On the Japanese side of the story, there are multiple games that uses the same service (DDR, Pop’n Music, beatmania IIDX, Gitadoro, Disney Tsum Tsum, etc.), however it looks like there would not be more than one or two pieces that “may” come out that would use and require this service in the U.S. so its not looking like a good deal.
All in all, I am glad to see there is another attempt to try DDR again in the U.S. but I am not convinced it will sell well if they release it in the current state it appears in. However I still patiently wait to see what new information comes from the beta tests. As it stands for me, it would be more productive to invest in older DDR or In The Groove dance games in my opinion.