Hello fellow Arcade Heroes, and welcome to another edition of newsbytes. This is a collection of quick bits ‘n bytes of news from this week that wouldn’t really warrant a full post; or I just didn’t have the time to get to them.
Video Arcade & Pinball Releases For 2018
I’ve been spending small bits of time over the past few weeks splicing this footage together to showcase the games that were released in 2018. I only covered North America as opposed to everywhere, mainly due to time. Adding Japanese releases like WMMT 6 and SWDC 2018 & 2019 would have filled it out more; as would videmption titles. Either way, here’s almost nine minutes of footage showcasing the games that call 2018 their origin year (with some previews of 2019 thrown in at the end). Of course, you know where to go to track the latest releases 🙂
I also posted a VLOG this week discussing new Versus or Fighting Pinball games. Check it out!
EAG 2019 Preview
EAG 2019 is taking place in London this coming week, so with that we have a quick preview. Much of what is there is a repeat of IAAPA, although there are many games which will be in a more complete software state by now. There are also a few titles that make their debut here, so don’t count the event out for surprises.
Of interest to many UK & European locations, Sega has announced that the event marks the debut of House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn on the continent. As such, I’ve put HOTDSD into the 2019 release column for Europe on our tracking page. I know many of readers have been anticipating this one, so your wait is finally over.
It will also mark the debut of ATV Slam, which did not come to IAAPA 2018. Attendees will also find various ICE products at the Sega booth, as Sega UK has a partnership to distribute their products in Europe.
A distributor by the name of Instance Automatics sent me a press release and some pictures of the games they will have at their booth. For anyone interested in UNIS content like Fantasy Soccer, Lane Master Pro and others, they’ll be the ones to check out (stand 906).
Stern Pinball has announced they’ll be there with their products, such as The Beatles, The Munsters and Deadpool. You’ll find them at stand 515.
When the show hits and we begin getting more information, we’ll be sharing it here!
Nolan Bushnell Praises UNIS/Calinfer’s Atari PONG Table
We’ve seen the Atari PONG Table project many times before, but few modern arcade products make the rounds to non-amusement industry trade shows than it has. One of those visits was to Las Vegas for the CES 2019 event. Atari co-founder and co-designer of the original Atari Pong video game, Nolan Bushnell, was there and he stopped by UNIS’ booth to check out the modern EM remake of the concept, where he “loved it.” Here’s Mr. Bushnell posing for a photo in front of the new coin-op cocktail version with UNIS lead Steven Tan:
Level 257 Completes It’s Transformation Into Pac-Man Entertainment
Thanks to reader ChillyBilly for sending this our way; it wasn’t long ago that we posted about a major change to Namco USA’s arcade operations, looking to unify their many locations underneath the “Pac-Man Entertainment” banner. With Level 257 as a flagship for the company, it made sense that they would lead the way, and now that is complete as the Level 257 sign has been replaced. Just keep that in mind the next time you’re in the area:
Arcade 1up’s Success Brings Expansion
If you’ve been wanting a smaller version of classic arcade games in your home and on the cheap, then Arcade 1up has been filling that desire. Enjoying such success means more titles and features, as they will bring titles like Golden Tee, Mortal Kombat, Final Fight and more to the fray. They are also looking at doing 4-player & cocktail cabinets (click for a rundown of CES 2019 news), in a run to allow collectors to build a full-blown arcade room. They’ll be announcing even more at E3…if you have one, what do you think about it?
VR Coin-op Spotted At CES 2019
Labelled as “VRLEO,” this game was at CES 2019, although I haven’t come up with any more details than what you see here. It’s a nice looking turret shooter game, although it’s hard to tell if it’s comfortable to use by this video:
Let’s end on a fun note. Anyone else feel like this when playing Zaxxon?
