Newsbytes: 2019 Releases; D&B Unveils Dragonfrost VR; Arcade/Christmas Parody & More

Welcome to the holiday weekend! Today’s newsbytes was a little bit delayed, in part due to WordPress completely revamping how posts work. As usual when a website makes fundamental changes to how creating posts works, there’s a transition period where one has to learn the ropes – but I’m finding that a lot of tasks are taking longer to do regardless. Hurray.

Onto the news:

Arcade & Pinball Releases For 2019

We always take a look at the annual stats around this time of year, where one page is always among the most visited on the site – the “New Releases” page that is linked at the top. This is where we list out every known video game, pinball and videmption release, covering North America, Asia and Europe.

This year will mark a full decade that we’ve been tracking such releases, having started in 2009 (the site has been around since 2006, but didn’t get the idea for tracking for a few years). I am trying out something a little different this year – putting the releases on a bullet list with hyperlinks and images all into a slider. Let me know what you think – if it’s good or bad. It will become the link at the top on Dec. 31st; I hope to get the current 2018 page cleaned up by then.

Check the page out here and share it with anyone who is lazily putting together that next ARCADES ARE DEAD article. 😉

Speaking of that page, you’ll quickly notice how full the roster is of games coming through Exa-Arcadia. While things have been fairly quiet on the Exa front lately, you can read a recent interview with Exa CEO Eric Chung over at Shmupemall.

Dragonfrost VR Arrives As Game #2 For D&B’s VR Machine

(Thanks to Pedro A. for the tip)

Dave & Busters made waves earlier this year when they rolled out the biggest launch of a VR amusement title in Jurassic World VR Expedition. Now they are refreshing the same platform with the original Dragonfrost. I’ve been told by Nick at Arcade Hunters that this is a much better game than JW, so if you are so inclined, you might want to check this out.

A Christmas Parody – Waitin’ for Parts to Arrive

Last year, an arcade collector made a parody Christmas song with an arcade theme called Do You See What I See [On Craigslist?]. Now Dinkyflix is back with an arcade-themed parody of Winter Wonderland. Check it out (and Merry Christmas):

Segasonic Bros. Going From Arcade To Genesis

Or the Mega Drive for our friends on the other side of the pond. The Segasonic Bros. prototype was quite the surprise find that showed up earlier this year; I got a chance to play it at CAX2018, although I was not good at it. For those who would love to play the game on their Sega Genesis, someone is working hard to make that happen:

Bandai Namco Making Moves Into China

I don’t know that this will affect much of what we’ll see over in North American/Europe, but Bandai Namco announced this week that they are expanding various business operations into China with the establishment of Bandai Namco holdings Shanghai. This will include new arcade locations, toys for licensing and the VR ZONE PORTAL. Read more about it here.

Speaking of Namco, they also released a new software update for Mario Kart Arcade GP DX, but this is limited to Japan, so don’t expect to see all of the sweet new additions like the Donkey Kong Cup on machines over here. Although it sounds like this would make for a great “paid DLC” kind of thing.

Video: The Pinball Tools of the Trade

One of the more daunting tasks that come up for pinball owners is the maintenance. If you aren’t lucky enough to be handy with pins, or have someone close by who is, then you probably have to resort to asking people online what they do. To help out, Jersey Jack Pinball produced this video that gets into machine maintenance and the tools that you’ll need to make it work. Check it out:

Article: “The Secret History of the Arcade Trackball”

Trackballs aren’t frequently used in arcades these days, although titles like Golden Tee and Family Guy Bowling are “holding down the fort” so-to-speak. If you are curious as to how the technology came into being, then I would recommend reading this great article over at Arcade Blogger. Yeah it’s an older article at this point, but it checks out.

That’s all I managed to gather together for this post, so we’ll leave you with another music video, this time not focused on Christmas, but loaded to the brim with the 80’s and arcades. Enjoy and have an awesome weekend!