Here’s the latest collection of arcade news for the weekend:
Eric “ECM” Mylonas Passes Away
I wanted to discuss this earlier on the site after I had found out but decided to wait until an obituary would be available. Known to the gaming community at large as “ECM”, Eric Mylonas was a prevalent and influential writer who was the editor for a time of Diehard Gamefan Magazine. He wrote various game strategy guides for Prima, putting both his writing and voracious gaming talents to incredible use. He was a stalwart
Image from a personal training book he was working on for gamers.
fan of arcades, having grown up playing just about everything under the sun (he once quizzed me on games that I had & hadn’t played, touching plenty of obscure stuff I had only read about whereas he had experienced them first hand). He had collected arcade boards for a while, sending me various ones to test and a few (Armed Police Batrider, Macross Plus, ESP Rade and several others) I bought off him. He commented on the site here as early as 2008, which is where I met him. But beyond that, he was a great friend that was always there to talk pretty much any time I was online – he had an intelligence that is rare to find in people, matched with amazing wit & wisdom. It’s still hard to believe he’s gone but I am glad that I got to know him. Rest In Peace; here is an obituary produced by his girlfriend:
RT Obituary to be in Sunday's Nationwide Edition of the NYTimes@ECMIAM Eric "ECM" Mylonas passed away Jan 13, 2018
Former Editorial Director of GameFan
Creator of the #GamerGate shirt & the original featured by #VoxDay
Everyone's invited to a Requiem Mass https://t.co/OQXY6NOSLg pic.twitter.com/ZZlPOMCLvB— Rinku's Girl (@Rinkusgrrl) February 17, 2018
Amusement Expo 2018 Game Line-up
Amusement Expo 2018 starts on Feb 27th in Las Vegas, with the trade show portion beginning on the 28th. I will be there to cover what is going to be there although we have not heard much in the way of announcements so far. We know for certain that Betson/Raw Thrills will bring Injustice, X Games Snowboarder and TMNT will be there. Otherwise the rest are assumptions; it is possible that the next major update to Big Buck Wild, Monster Island, will be shown and I would assume a re-worked version of Mario Party Challenge World will be along as well. Unit-E Technologies mentioned at IAAPA to look at their AE booth for a new version of NEON FM.
We’ll keep an eye open for any additional announcements this week.
Dance Rush Stardom Confirmed For Round1USA Locations
All you need is a tweet for big news like this but I am very curious about general distribution on this one. Round1USA tends to have a setup that most of us US operators cannot mimic, which is why R1 locations tend to have many Japanese games that you won’t find anywhere else. Dance Rush does have English language support but will any distributor be willing to carry the game? Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report doesn’t find that likely; we’ll be sure to ask around at Amusement Expo a week and a half from now.
BemaniStyle has a complete breakdown of the game features as known so far, check that out here.
Japan's Newest Music Game is Coming to Round1, DANCE RUSH STARDOM!!! #Round1 #DanceRush #Stardom #Bemani pic.twitter.com/KAbGtvfFIv
— Round1 USA (@Round1USA) February 14, 2018
Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 6 Japanese Trailer & Bandai Namco Re-Organizes (Again)
A couple of Bandai Namco items, with the WMMT6 trailer and some news about the company continuing to restructure how they are organized. BN has done restructuring & name changes a few times already in recent years and this tends to get confusing. The link to the Japanese announcement is here; Kevin Williams broke it down on our new Facebook group to say that this will strongly affect how the Western amusement division undertakes business, outlining some of that with this quote:
Bandai Namco Amusement, a major company of the “Real Entertainment Unit”, will be a company that Namco has integrated amusement machine business of Bandai Namco Entertainment. In the future, BANDAI NAMCO Amusement will be the center, focusing on facilities and services that utilize realistic points of contact with customers, planning and development capabilities of amusement machines, state-of-the-art technological capabilities, commercialization expertise making full use of the IP worldview, We will provide content. It will utilize the strengths of holding a value chain from equipment development to offering to customers, to operate efficiently at existing stores, and to provide a place to develop differentiated content unique to BANDAI NAMCO
And here’s the WMMT6 trailer:
Stern X Supreme Pinball Cabinet
Being that I am indifferent about the Supreme brand (having just heard about it this week), I just don’t find the aesthetic of this upcoming machine to be appealing at all. If you are a fan of the brand however, I’m curious to know what you think:
Dara O’Briain’s Go 8-Bit TV Show Returns To UK TV For A 3rd Season
(Thanks to Kieran May for the tip)
Or ‘series’ as they call them on the other side of the pond. Go 8-Bit is a video game playing TV show, kind of like the old Starcade but where the gamers are celebrities. This is arcade related in that they do occasionally feature real arcade machines or play stuff like Human Pong. A few more details on this were published at Eurogamer.
That’s all I’ve managed to come across for now, have a great weekend everyone.
Wow RIP to Eric, can’t believe he’s only 43. Sounds a smart guy too.
I take it dance rush will be just the standard Japanese version but with English options. Will it have songs that are well known in the west and not all Japanese?
I can see this game doing well but of course it comes down to price and having to buy 2 units unlike DDR.
I wonder also if nex machina makes an appearance this time from rawthrills. Wonder if it failed testing?
Eric was a brilliant guy. I consulted with him on various writing projects too. Still hard to believe he’s gone.
Dance Rush was touted as having multiple language options so I would assume those all apply to the UI. It also can function as a single unit – the 2 player units are for “Team Battle” modes but not essential.
I have a feeling that Nex Machina has been canned – nothing to confirm that but RT seems to be focused on other genres that can probably prove themselves better (also might explain Housemarque’s silly “Arcade Is Dead” article that they ran a while ago)
Does Dance Rush Stardom not have the light-up floor in that promotional image, or am I going insane?
Pretty sure it is there, at least in the 2nd one that Round1USA shows…