ExA Arcade Board Gains Support From G.Rev, Seibu Kaihatsu & City Connection

Last week, we ran a story about a new company that is looking to bring content to arcades by the name of Exa-Arcadia. They made their first public appearance at the JAEPO 2018 show last week and already we have more news to consider in regards to the exA arcade board.

As I mentioned in that initial story, content would be key to the platform’s success and already they have recognizable names rallying around the concept. First, in case you missed it, game #3 for the exA hardware is a horizontal scrolling shoot ’em up by the name of Infinos EXA by Picorinne Software. Here’s a video showing the PC version; do keep in mind that the developer guidelines for the exA do require that ports have some kind of features/content that will be exclusive to the arcade version. We do not know yet what those will entail for Infinos:

We should also note that both Aka To Blue Type-R and Super Hydorah AC have both been on test in Mikado Japan after JAEPO. Here’s direct feed footage of both (thanks to Arcade Otaku for the heads up on these):

Aka To Blue Type-R

Super Hydorah AC

Well-Known Names Pledge Support For The ExA Board

As mentioned in the headline, more content is on it’s way. The following companies have pledged their support for the new system although it is still a bit early for details on what they are bringing to the . These include:

G.Rev –  Known for shoot ’em ups like Senko No Ronde, Border Down, Under Defeat, and others. The announcement was made on G.Rev’s Twitter, where they hinted that they might be bringing Strania – The Stella Machine to the platform (although that is not confirmed yet). In ‘working with the fan community’, there is a thread over at the Shmup Forums where a poll has been going by Exa-Arcadia President ShouTime to get feedback from fans in regards to what they would like to see from G.Rev. So far, fans have been heaviest on something new although the idea of Border Down HD has a bit of support too.

Seibu Kaihatsu – This is a name that hasn’t been on the radar for modern gamers but if you visited an arcade in the early 90s then you likely were very familiar with their work thanks to American licensing firm Fabtek. Seibu Kaihatsu was behind the legendary Raiden series and by the announcement tweet, it sounds like we can expect to have Raiden back in arcades once again soon. Assuming it will be Raiden V, I imagine that the changes made for the EXA version will bring it more in line with what you would expect from a Raiden game (RV if you didn’t know has some mixed reviews from fans as it wasn’t designed for arcades but for consoles, changing various elements for what console gamers might expect).

Online, articles talk about them being defunct but they have been active at least for licensing Raiden. They began re-hiring staff about a year ago and it looks like EXA will provide a way for them to get back into the game directly.

City Connection – If you are not familiar with this company, here is their website. They own the rights to Jaleco’s old content, which should be a name that arcade gamers are familiar with on some level. Jaleco created many games for consoles as well but their arcade list was almost 100 games long – City Connection, Arm Champs, Tetris Plus and plenty more. Lately, CC has been busy creating titles for the Switch, PC or PS4 so it should be interesting to see if they bring one of those titles over or resurrect something from the Jaleco catalog instead.

More than that is coming – what kind of games would you like to see make their way to arcades via the exA system? Are there any companies that you hope add their support behind this system?