Now that we’ve caught up with the new games coming to Western shores, it’s time to look at the Eastern market, particularly Japan. They’ve announced a few arcade video games as of late, although what we’ll discuss here isn’t likely to show up at a North American or European location apart from showing up at Round1USA.
I recently mentioned how Bandai Namco Amusements has been fairly quiet on the video game front, but that was short-lived. We could almost call this the Bandai Namco Japan update, since three of the four games we’ll discuss here are coming from BNA.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Last Survivor (Bandai Namco Amusements)
This game is based upon a popular manga series that has also appeared in various other media forms, including video games. For this upcoming arcade outing, it is jumping into the very popular “Battle Royale” format that everybody’s talking about. Here’s the initial trailer:
Namco will begin testing the game out in January, with an eye towards the release in the Summer. Battles will handle up to 20 players, with the cabinet supporting online features. Both the cabinet and the controls follow a similar design to other multiplayer arena games that Japan has enjoyed (Konami’s Steel Chronicle is coming to mind for me on this one). You can find the official website for the game here.
Poker Stadium Goes Through First Public Test
It has been a while since we’ve seen a poker game in arcades, although it isn’t unheard of to see playing card games in the biz. For this new entry, it uses a compact cabinet that can be linked with three other cabinets (or online) as you play poker using a touchscreen interface:
I’m not sure how popular poker tournaments are in Japan right now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they find similar attention to what we see here (maybe a little bit more?). You can visit the official website for Poker Stadium here.
The Next Major Update For Tekken 7 Hits Arcades In February
(Thanks to Eddie N. for the tip on this one) – Tekken 7 was tested out in the States, even at some select Dave & Busters locations, but it did not enjoy a wide release as some fans were hoping for (they did get a console release however, so no worries there). Japan is a different situation however, with the culture and market situation giving arcade fighters a little more breathing room.
While the chances are small, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Fated Retribution Round 2 update get a chance to test in US arcades. Although it’s unlikely that the performance would differ in any major way, unless it had some sort of guarantee that some content wouldn’t hit consoles. The update shown above hits Japanese game centers in February. You can see the latest from the world of Tekken 7, here.
See players enjoy a race on Sega’s SWDC 2019
We mentioned this one recently, Sega’s latest racing arcade game that isn’t quite made for casual players. We’ll end this post with some players giving this now available game a spin:
