It’s 2020 and it’s time for our first Newsbytes of the year! If you’re new around here, this is where we take a look at some quick items from around the arcade world to give you something to read over the weekend.
As a note for the site, I think there’s no other choice than to switch hosts, which I will be deciding upon next week. Hopefully there isn’t any super major news when the switch happens, as the site might be down for server changes, but I’m also hoping to prevent downtime as much as possible.
AMUSEMENT @ CES 2020
While the Consumer Electronics Show isn’t primarily focused on arcade style stuff, we’re increasingly seeing more arcade companies make their way their. Stern Pinball had their typical CES booth (which is always more interesting that what they bring to IAAPA/Amusement Expo), starring Stranger Things (Pro and Premium), Jurassic Park Premium and Star Wars Comic Art. As a sidenote, if you’re in the UK, then one distributor by the name of Liberty Games sent me a link mentioning that they have all three models available. I heard something about Stern trying to simplify the overseas sales process, although I don’t know what that entails.
UNIS was on hand with two of their units that debuted at IAAPA 2019, Pong Knock Out and On Point. They posted a video to showcase the safety sensor of On Point, which is something that a lot of people were wary about during IAE (although I never saw any issues in that regard).
Home game maker Arcade1up also grabbed a number of headlines with their new announcements surrounding virtual pinball, BurgerTime, Golden Axe and more:
Arcade Sidekick High Score Tracking App
I thought that I had mentioned this app before, but it appears that I have not. If you have an iOS or Android device, and want an easy way to track your scores on the go, then this app is where it’s at. Per the app description:
Fancy tracking your progress and scores on classic arcade games? With over 300 arcade machines available to track (and more added every month) never forget your highscores again.
It’s a play on Arcade Heroes (as heroes generally have sidekicks; note that this app is not associated with AH, or something I’ve commissioned to be made, but I like the look of what I’ve seen so far), which is a nice touch too. 😀 I can’t personally speak about it from experience yet, as I just heard about it this morning, but it’s only $2.59; I’ll be looking into this more, where I’ll also have to get my arcade listed on there.
Content Update For StepManiaX
If you have an SMX machine near you, then heads-up, as 8 new songs have been added to the game to start off the new year. A few of the songs are by Sanxion7, where some of the particular songs were on
Prototype: Submarines by Namco
I also can’t recall if we’ve shared this before but I saw a couple of people spreading it around Twitter (mainly ohfivepro, who uploaded the vid), so might as well let you see it in case you’ve missed it too. Back in 1999, Namco was going to tackle the underwater battle genre, but after the game appeared at AOU’99, it vanished as Namco decided not to release it. It looks like it would have been a cross between Battle Shark and Sea Wolf, but it seems that we’ll never know how it plays for sure:
Get An Arcade Prop From Universal Studios
Thanks to Stingray_Travel for the tip on this one. I’m not sure if this has sold yet, but if you’re into both arcades and owning movie props, then you can get your hands on a Halloween Horror Nights cabinet that was used as a part of Universal’s “Anarch-cade” events last Halloween. It’ll set you back $3000 if you’re in the hunt for something like it.
Before we go, there also was a new release this week from Andamiro in the whacker/redemption category, but as Wilcox Arcade points out, it’s just a name change by the looks of things.
That is all I’ve managed to gather for this weekend, thanks for reading and be sure to visit an arcade this weekend if one is nearby!
