The Japan Amusement Expo 2019 (JAEPO 2019) has begun, and with it is a flurry of news. I have already posted a thread dedicated to the many announcements that will be coming about from the exA-Arcadia platform; this one is focusing on the initial set of news coming out of the big developers from its business-only day. Expect additional posts covering JAEPO to also appear over the weekend.
Konami
Konami has a plethora of scheduled tournaments on their many Bemani arcade titles, but they have new games to unveil as well.
Dance Dance Revolution 20th Anniversary Edition – The dance game that set the standard for the industry to follow celebrates 20 years on the market and is doing so in luxurious style. Here’s the official cabinet shot, showing that Konami is going for the golden standard:
BemaniStyle has a number of photos of this one to look at if you check them out on Twitter.
Eldora Crown – Not much to tell on this one yet, it looks like an RPG, but nothing else was said about this apart from having e-amusement support.
Baseball Collection – A new data card based game that vends cards from baseball players that belong to a variety of real teams.
Sega
Speaking of Konami, Sega and Konami have settled a QR code dispute and are collaborating together on e-money payments for arcade machines. Details can be found here.
Nothing revealed at the Sega booth so far indicates a game that I’d expect to see Stateside, but sometimes there’s a surprise that is hiding in a corner somewhere.
WCCF Footista – Way back when this site first started, Sega Amusements did bring a few WCCF cabinets over to the UK, but it hasn’t enjoyed such attention since then. The latest version of WCCF is on display at JAEPO; if you aren’t familiar with it, it’s a soccer/football game that uses player cards with stats to setup a fantasy team that then plays the game. You compete against others and overall it’s a fun game.
Maimai Deluxe – We’ve heard rumors of MaiMai coming over every now and then, but nothing that ever has legs. The new edition, which seems to translate as “Deluxe DX,” was on display, showing off new colors and songs for patrons to enjoy.
Kemono Friends 3 Planet Tours – Looks like a card vending kid-tainment piece based on the recent anime series; find the official website to this one here.
StarHorse 4 – A fourth massive horse derby simulator, not entirely unlike Sega’s Derby Owners Club of the past, but with the difference of featuring a gambling element via betting. That makes it a “medal game” (i.e. Japan’s equivalent of redemption), although this one even dispenses with physical medals, so don’t get your hopes up there. This new version is only 30% complete at the moment, so it still has a ways to go too.
I would expect to see Sega World Drivers Championship 2019 and House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn, but so far they have not been mentioned in any of the media that I’ve read. I’ll keep an eye out for them.
Taito
Densha De Go!!! Standard & Kids – When Taito came to IAAPA 2018, they brought along a giant multi-screen cabinet that is Densha De Go!!!, their train simulator series that first began in the late 90s. The new version upped the simulator aspect of it all, along with the graphics, allowing the user to experience what it is like to be a Japanese train conductor. I was pleasantly surprised with the way it played, not need too much help on how it worked (it was all in Japanese, so you do need a little assistance in figuring out what and how things work).
While that is an impressive cabinet, you can never go wrong in offering options. Taito has taken to developing two alternative cabinets – one for kids that is essentially translated as “Go to the train station!” and another one for adults that drops the full enclosure (thus reducing cost and space requirements). I imagine that if Taito is thinking about bringing a game over to the West, either or both of these models would work with English software.
Speaking of software, the company also announced that they are launching updated software with new content in February.
Street Fighter V Type Arcade (Capcom) – While Capcom did have a presence at previous JAEPO’s, last year they were hardly there and this year seems to be more of the same, apart from promoting Street Fighter V at Taito’s booth. This is because the game is launching on Taito’s NESICA network. Taking a page from Namco’s Tekken 5, you can plug a PS4 controller into the arcade cab, if for some reason you haven’t trained/played with an arcade stick:
Omatsuri Hippare Festival Quest – Could this be the next “Panic Park”? Almost looks that way. There are three pump controllers that are used to play mini-games. The booth players certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves here:
Space Invaders Gigamax – This is one that won’t fit in a street arcade, but you can only play it outside of the home. Ten player Space Invaders with a display that only fits on the side of a building (or a really big booth):
Halo: Fireteam Raven – Using the relationship they’ve had with Raw Thrills, Taito has brought Halo: Fireteam Raven over to Japan.
Bandai Namco Amusement
Apart from Pac-Man Panic, none of the video games unveiled so far seem to be geared towards a Western release, although there’s always a chance that these could end up at a place like Round 1USA.
Tekken 7 Fated Retribution Round 2 – Namco’s signature fighting game is about to get an update, with arcades enjoying it first. It still stinks that we don’t really have this over in the States, but Tekken fans in Japan should be happy.
Rapid River VR – Yep, Rapid River is back, but there’s no indication that we’ll see this in an arcade cabinet anytime soon. This is a part of Namco’s many new VR developments that they’ve created for their VR ZONE venues.
Sword Art Online – I’ve not played anything related to Sword Art Online, but I’ve heard things about it. It’s an RPG, which the Japanese market handles just fine. Here’s a trailer for the game, and an official trailer:
Poker Stadium – This poker arcade game does look impressive when you have all of these cabinets next to each other.
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure – The one image I saw of this was taken from far away and has people in front of the cabinets, so we’ll just repost the trailer and this gameplay footage:
Other
Blazblue Cross Tag Battle (Arc System Works) – A new version of Blazblue is making the jump from consoles (PS4 & Switch) to arcades, and it is going to try something a little different in the process. Japan has two online content distribution networks – Taito’s NesicaXLive2 and Sega’s ALL.NET Pras Multi 3. Generally speaking, games available on one system are not on the other. Blazblue Cross Tag Battle promises to change that by offering cross-platform play on the two. The game will be tested in Japan in February; Sega’s new ALL.NET system won’t launch until April though. Official website for this one is here.
WACCA (Marvelous) – A new rhythm game challenger is here, looking directly at MaiMai (and Sega’s Chunithm) in the process. This uses a cool-looking LED tunnel controller and circular screen; the JAEPO version also features three songs from musician Kenshi Yonezu (LMK if I have the wrong person linked).
Whew, that’s all I’ve managed to collect for the moment from official posts and coverage by Game Watch in Japan. There is certainly more to talk about as JAEPO 2020 gets underway for a full general public day on Saturday, so check back!
on what hardware will street fighter 5 type arcade run?
SFV Type Arcade is on NesicaxLive2
I find it strange that sega gave up on WCCF series because that game was always being played on by lots of football fans apart from me as Im not really into football/soccer. there were many cabinets all over Europe, particularly in Italy at the time when they release 2004/05 and 2005/06 versions but then stopped suddenly. I guess the only problem was that it required a lot of space to play the game just like derby owners world addition did.