How do you do, fellow kids? We’ve got some interesting items of arcade goodness to talk about for this weekend, so let’s hop to it:
The World’s Largest X-Men Arcade Game Installed at Geek’s Mania
When Konami released their beat ’em up based on Marvel’s X-Men cartoon in the early 90’s, they made two versions – a typical single screen 4-player model, and the iconic dual screen six-player behemoth. You can still find a few installed at arcades out there (I’ve had one for several years, although it may be finding a new home soon), but if you hit up an arcade/comic book store called Geek’s Mania in Madison, WI, you’ll find a unique setup that just launched this weekend that is calling itself the “world’s largest X-Men.” They took the “guts” of the machine, put them into the handy box below, built a new control panel (reminiscent of the Pac-Man Battle Royale deluxe control panel) and are projecting the screen image using two projectors. This reminds me of the Rastan III: Warrior Blade setup that I played at CAX 2018, although a bit more professional.
Coverage From IAAPI 2019
There are a lot of trade shows & arcade gaming events taking place this month, one of which was held this week in Bombay, India by the name of IAAPI. While the name is similar to IAAPA, I do not believe that the organizations are the same; IAAPI stands for the “Indian Association of Amusement Parks and Industries.”
Our headlining advertiser, Touch Magix, is headquartered in India and shared some photos from their very busy booth onto social media, while site friend & contributor Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report was there to check out the show as well as make a keynote presentation at the FEC Connect. I’ll share his thoughts about it, then check out photos from the event in the slider; I do not believe that any new coin-op games were unveiled there, but as always, there was some quirky LBE VR machine to be found.
“KWP would like to thank all those involved in our attendance at IAAPI in India, and the chance to present a keynote at the second FEC Connect Mumbai conference, an amazing turnout of the leaders in shaping the indoor entertainment business in India. IAAPI was a impressive show, and has come a long way in defining the opportunity of the India amusement and attraction business. I hope to chart the new opportunities and trends witnessed at the event, in coming Stinger Report coverage.”
Speaking of events, there was also an arcade event over in Europe by the name of Made In Asia 2019; our friends over at Arcade Belgium setup a booth there.
Sega Launching Kid-tainment "Remote Reality RPG" Attraction In Japan, Jungle Treasure
Sega unveiled an interesting new concept in "kid-tainment" this week, and something about it reminds me of an old 80's attraction that Sega made by the name of Sega Super Circuit. Not because of the size - this new concept called Jungle Treasure is quite a bit smaller - but in the sense of using remote controlled vehicles around a pre-made, physical course.
The modern take on the idea involves a detailed playfield and doesn't use sit-down arcade cabinets, but handy little tablets. While Sega and a few other Japanese companies have worked to to develop kid-friendly attractions like this before, Jungle Treasure should be far less messy than the Augmented Reality kinetic sand games.
See the official webpage for Jungle Treasure here.
Exa-Arcadia Rolls Out More Location Tests In Japan
During the big roll out of the Exa board at JAEPO 2019, it was mentioned that the company would soon begin location tests of the system at various locations across Japan. This week those tests began, with titles like Aka & Blue Type R showing up at locations like the Taito Hey Akihabara, Namco Matsudo in Chiba and the Apina Omiya in Saitama. More tests are forthcoming; for those of us in the US, we just have to hang tight, then it'll be our turn.
exA-Arcadia begins the journey into arcades nationwide across Japan starting at Taito Hey!
Congrats to our amazing international team for making this happen!
POWER TO THE EXA!#EXA基板 pic.twitter.com/7YxtNMJy6n
— exA-Arcadia社長 (@exaarcadiaceo) March 7, 2019
Raw Thrills Has A Bold New Banner Marquee For Cruis'n Machines
Earlier this week, my brother and I took a "tour" of three FECs in our area to kind of see what the competition was up to. As a part of that, I finally visited the Round 1 USA and Dave & Busters locations that opened up in the SLC area last year; while at the D&B, I saw this new multi-game marquee for myself. While it's most impressive for four connected units, locations with just a pair can also get a version of it. It reminds me of the ol' multi-cab marquee that Cruis'n USA had.
(As a note, D&B also has padded seats, which is a nice addition too)
Cruis'n Blast is a high earning racer that will take your location to a whole new level. One unit or four, Cruis'n Blast will get you 1st Place! >> https://t.co/DPSwL9DCVC #RawThrills #CruisnBlast #Nintendo pic.twitter.com/F4Rlbd9Jy5
— Raw Thrills (@rawthrills) March 4, 2019
Arcade Humor This Week: Showtime Pizza
H/T to Nick from the Arcade Hunters for today's laugh:
Exa-Arcadia is exciting. I have to say though, I’m struck by direct parallels to the home console market.
Clearly the price of the system allows the hardware to be something special, but the market obstacles are strikingly similar to the home console market.
Strong first party and/or super strong third party games are gonna make or break this thing.
I think you mentioned bar games, -yes, sports games -yes. It’s gonna have to do the bread-n-butter stuff. I’m just concerned how much they leaned on the retro shmups in the early preview.
I think the reason for the strong shoot ’em up focus at first is because most of their developer support is in Japan, and the market there shows a much stronger interest in such games than in the West. I think it will do best with fighters here, but we’ll have to see once kits start making their way out there 🙂
Looks like the 6 player X-Men re-modeling would make quite a splash for special events. I actually have seen the 6-player X-Men arcade game at Emporium San Francisco with small and minimal mess-ups on the dual monitor, but remains perfectly playable.
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As for the Exa Arcadia location test, it makes sense that AKA & Blue Type R would be the most frequently play-tested game as it is their flagship launch title to give a strong start for the platform and operators. The other games in diverse genres will soon follow across the world.
I took a peek at the shmup forums and ShouTime did confirm that there are talks about location tests with Round 1 for Japan and USA locations.I hope one of them is in Eastridge Shopping Center in San Jose because that Round 1 is closest to my home.
All that money and effort into the X-men setup and they’re using the garbage Gonbes video converters. At least show some respect and spring for the OSSC.