Newsbytes: Aki To Blue Type R; WCCF 2017-2018; Arcade Cab Conversions; Starcade Goes Prime

January has been fairly mild as far as weather goes – at least where I live (hanging around the 40s most of the time). Even though it’s not super-freezing like the Eastern US, it has seemed to keep people coming to the mall and thus to the arcade.

Let’s start with just a headline: Osaka Police Arrest Arcade Owner On Crane Game-Rigging Charges

Aki To Blue Type R Coming To Arcades In 2018

Thanks to everyone who sent this my way. A new vertical shooter game has been announced for arcades, a title that is already available on mobile devices by the name of Aki To Blue (I’ve also seen it written Aka To Blue). Created by a team of ex-Cave developers, the Type R arcade edition will feature various improvements including an adjusted screen ratio (now 4:3), optimized for real world controls, improved graphics, adjusted systems, bug fixes and more. Details on the release are still light but it is good news for arcade shooter fans as such games are not being released as often as they used to be. Aki To Blue Type S has also been announced for the Nintendo Switch. You will want to stay tuned to AH for more on this soon, particularly around JAEPO time as we will have more info on this soon 😉 Here’s the mobile version trailer:

Sega Launching WCCF 2017-2018 On Jan 25th

One of AH’s first writers, TwistedSupreme, was a big fan of the World Club Champion Football series but I am not aware of Sega bringing the game over to the West for many years. If you find yourself in Japan sometime after the 25th of this month, then you should be able to find the game at a local arcade that keeps up with the latest releases (probably a Club Sega in this case). If you are unfamiliar with the series, it offers a soccer management and play arcade title. Kind of like what you find with StarHorse / derby Champions, just a different sport.

The Collector’s Bane – Conversions

The Arcade Blogger has an article diving into what happened to many of the 55,000~ Defender arcade cabinets out there. While there are still plenty of original Defenders left, many were converted into other games down the road when Defender stopped drawing in the crowds like it had. This is standard procedure for operators who like or need to push the cabinets as far as they can go but it isn’t so great for collectors who wish to preserve history or play the game as it was originally created (especially if the conversion in question is a “holy grail” piece that is rare or unique in some way).

I’m sure you have all come across conversions of a good game into something not so desirable. I recall years ago stumbling across an Atari Star Wars that had been converted into a Taito Crime City – they didn’t even bother changing the art on the cabinet, just the marquee, monitor and controls. One of my first cabinet purchases was a Joust that was also converted to a Crime City…that was a popular one to go with I guess. But I can’t bag on conversions all of the time – as an operator I got a lot of mileage out of converting a pair of old & busted Cruis’n World’s into FnF Tokyo Drift and later Super Cars #yeahiampartoftheproblem

Bay Tek Games On A Hiring Spree

It was recently mentioned on the blog here that 2017 was an incredible year for mine and other arcade businesses out there. When operators/locations do well, then that also tends to mean that other parts of the sector are also doing well. I noticed from my Twitter feed that Bay Tek Games has posted several job openings as of late. If you are near Green Bay / Pulaski Wisconsin and you want to work in the arcade industry, check out what they have posted for jobs on LinkedIn.

KLOV Updating It’s Database Again

It has been quite a while since the arcade site klov.com / International Arcade Museum had been updating entries to it’s database but the team behind it has been busy going through the backlog of submitted game entries and adding both them and their game flyers to the website. It is looking like more recent games need to be submitted or worked on – 2017 is only showing Skycurser at the moment when there was plenty more than that. But either way I’m happy to see updates coming to the site once again.

Sega’s Border Break Coming To The PS4

This is one of those Japanese-centric arcade titles that I really would have liked to have seen over in the US but, it’s also one of those games that it too complicated for the US arcade scene. If you have a PS4, you’ll soon be able to enjoy Border Break’s fast mech style action:

Starcade Lands On Amazon Prime

You may recall a piece of news lat year that the arcade-focused TV game show from the 80s, Starcade, would be returning thanks to ShoutTV. While we’ve not heard any news about the remake as of late, ShoutTV has added “Season 3” and “Season 4” of the original show to Amazon Prime. EDIT: Correction – I tried this when I got home and while it is listing on Prime, you need to sign-up to ShoutTV’s streaming service. You can start with a free 7-day trial. Not sure why Seasons 1 & 2 are missing but perhaps they will be along soon. You can still find some episodes on YouTube but I imagine that ShoutTV might be coming down on those soon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eESdC_MqRbI

Let’s end with this fresh post of new level art for Skycurser:

A little background art preview for #screenshotsaturday #pixelart #gamedev #indiegamedev #arcade pic.twitter.com/PvSq11XdEK

— SKYCURSER dev team (@skycurser) January 13, 2018

Have a great weekend everyone and if you can, go out to an arcade and play some games!