Bandai Namco Building A New Star Wars Battle Pod Location Directory

Today Bandai Namco Amusements sent out the following e-mail, looking for information on where to find Star Wars Battle Pod arcade games out ‘in the wild’:

To owners of:

Star Wars: Battle Pod

and
Star Wars: Battle Pod Flat Screen Edition

With the record shattering success of the new film,

Bandai Namco Amusement America is creating a new location directory on our website which will help players find where they can play Star Wars: Battle Pod.

If you own a Star Wars: Battle Pod or Star Wars: Battle Pod flat screen edition and would like to be listed on this directory please click the following link and fill out the information:

[Link removed to prevent spam] – AH

This is just one of the many new plans we have to bring new players and business to arcade owners, operators and distributors. Keep an eye out for more emails from us in the future for more ways which we will be working with you to better promote amusement gaming!

Sincerely,

BANDAI NAMCO Amusement America Inc.

This appears to be a fresh effort to build upon the directory that they launched with Starwarsbattlepod.com. That site has had sporadic updates and the locations tab is a bit out-of-date. As to the question ‘How do they not know where the games are already?’, arcade manufacturers sell to distributors who turn around and sell to operators but tracking that can become very difficult, if not impossible as games don’t always stay where they originally ship to, you have blind shipments, distributor clients don’t always buy just one particular game, etc.

Certainly Namco is vetting the entries that are coming in to be sure that the location is legit. What is also noteworthy is the line about “one of many new plans” to increase business based on this game. As someone that has the Pod version, that is good news as it has been a solid earner but I think it could do much better (and for the cost, should be doing much better) with some tweaks. Episode VII content would be a huge plus; what do you think Namco is cooking up for the Battle Pod?