I meant to post this last Saturday but life became very busy – in part because I bought The Simpsons arcade machine and it needed a cap kit replacement. I did that and got the game setup but all of that took a lot of time. That said, these newsbytes are still relevant so let’s get to it!
Also, this week may also be a little light on news. Granted, every September is light on arcade news. We hear rumors of things in the works but often don’t see anything until October/November. But the Salt Lake Comic Con is taking place and will keep me very busy from Wednesday – Saturday. If anything big does come along though, I’ll do what I can to report on it. Until then, onto the bytes!
French Arcade ‘Warehouse’ Raid
OK, it’s not so much a “warehouse” but it is an abandoned location in France full of games so it is close enough. If you have an hour to kill and enjoy watching raids of collectors saving games from said old derelict buildings, check out this video. The condition of the building reminds me of the infamous Sundance story but the number of games (along with some very interesting rarities) makes for quite the compelling raid. If you’d like to read the details on the raid instead, and how it came to be, check out Tony Temple’s blog post about it.
Not So Much A Raid, But A Visit
Since we’re on the subject of visiting old buildings full of arcade games in them, this past week I had the opportunity to visit a much nicer situation in a local town. There’s a retrocade that opened up last year that is run by a dentist; he’s amassed quite a collection of games. There are a couple of collectors who have been helping him keep his games running, even though they live in a city that’s about two hours away. These guys have also helped me on numerous projects and we’ve sold games back and forth to each other. In an old furniture warehouse where the collector/techs live, the dentist has purchased the building to use as storage. The collectors are also able to store their stuff there – and when I needed to test out an Asteroids Deluxe board, it was the perfect place to go. None of the games are for sale but there were some fun ones there in varied states of being. I got to play some Robotron, Tuttankham, Dragon’s Lair and Blasteroids. Here are a couple of pics…the Fix-It Felix Jr. is genuine but the monitor wasn’t working:
I came across a stash of classic arcade games last night. Some really nice rarities in the mix, not all worked, none for sale: pic.twitter.com/xNWnAtNn2F
— Arcade Heroes – The Saviors of Coin-op Newsblog (@arcadeheroes) September 13, 2017
Another shot from the classic arcade storage place. See anything interesting? 😉 pic.twitter.com/7VlzTmUSCf
— Arcade Heroes – The Saviors of Coin-op Newsblog (@arcadeheroes) September 13, 2017
Some sugar for you Sega fans. Star Trek SOS Captain's Chair. I'm sure you can guess which part isn't working for it. Still cool to see pic.twitter.com/UB1nx6g5s6
— Arcade Heroes – The Saviors of Coin-op Newsblog (@arcadeheroes) September 13, 2017
Nintendo Arcade Classics Coming To the Nintendo Switch
Nintendo made plenty of waves this week with their latest “Nintendo Direct” news video and part of that was the announcement of some of their arcade classics coming to the platform. That includes the original Mario Bros., Punch Out and some of the VS. games. I wonder why the original Donkey Kong isn’t a part of that yet as that has been ignored on past Virtual Console releases in favor of the inferior NES port. Either way, the Switch has become quite the platform for arcade ports, particularly when it comes to Neo Geo MVS titles.
Alien Pinball Update
I haven’t heard much about what has been going on with Alien Pinball after the company founder was ousted by investors. It seems they’ve just been busy on getting the game completed and out to buyers. A batch has been completed with a container destined for the USA on it’s way. Perhaps we’ll start seeing the game in locations before too long…
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ColorDMD Adds Dirty Harry Pinball To The Colorized Game Mix
I’ve not come across a Dirty Harry pinball machine before but if you want to see it in glorious color, now is your chance thanks to the folks at ColorDMD. They had a little trolling fun for their fans as they teased this one, since many are asking where the colorization for Stern’s Star Trek is at (I’m among those eager to see that but I try not to bug them about it 😛 )For more details on the Dirty Harry mod, click here.
New Champ For World’s Fastest Drummer
This is what it’s all about – pushing that skill to it’s limits to set a world record. Such is the case for Tito Fuente Jr. on the new World’s Fastest Drummer arcade game by Unit-E Technologies. The score to beat – 665. You can see a video of the feat by clicking here (takes you to Facebook); otherwise here is a tweet:
@titopuentejr WFD Arcade Game World Champion! @southpointlv @arcadeheroes @replaymag pic.twitter.com/grxw8fcRLF
— @WFDrummers (@WFDrummers) September 10, 2017
Mission 5 Coming Soon To Skycurser
As you might recall, this indie made arcade game was meant to have six total levels…almost there:
UPDATE! Working hard on Mission 5 backgrounds and a patch to address bugs will be made public very shortly. #pixelart #gamedev #skycurser pic.twitter.com/AKt5qgVtHu
— SKYCURSER dev team (@skycurser) September 8, 2017
If You Collect Arcade Games, You Know This Dilemma…
— Arcade Otaku (@arcadeotaku) September 7, 2017
Catch you on the next piece of news!
The meme is accurate …
From what I understand, Nintendo had third party help with the arcade game. After a lawsuit it was decided the 3rd part had the rights to the arcade, but Nintendo created the characters and level design. Because of that we can’t get the arcade game on modern Nintendo systems.
There is talk about it in a couple books.
That sounds like the story I’ve read before – it was the company that made the monitors for the game IIRC – but what baffles me is how Nintendo can’t simply buy them out. They certainly could afford it (unless the monitor company is being unreasonable with how much they would want for their buy-out).
A game journalist I talked to about this said he thought that Nintendo had resolved this years ago but I’ve not found info on whether that did happen or not.
Anatomy of Super Mario by Jeremy Parish is the easiest one to find.