Welcome to Newsbytes, a curation of quick news from around the amusement/arcade/pinball world. I’m your host, ArcadeHero, and here’s what I’ve gathered for this weekend:
The Viral Bowling Alley Drone Video
You’ve probably seen this already, but just in case you haven’t, here you go. The piloting on the drone is masterful in how it was done, which is why it’s been talked about so much – even Hollywood has noticed it. For the place, it’s Bryant-Lake Bowl & Theater in Minneapolis.
I’ve thought about getting a camera drone before to do some stuff at my arcade, but this is definitely on another level, given the choreography with the players & diners.
Shredder’s Revenge
Also in something that you probably saw already, was a game announcement that certainly seems to have made some big waves, and from the looks of it, this trailer has earned the game a lot of praise, since it better follows Konami’s original efforts than some other console TMNT works have done. While this isn’t coming to arcades – that would be a bit of a licensing headache since Raw Thrills is still selling their TMNT rendition to interested buyers (and don’t forget the still-new TMNT pinball machine, which is also based all on the 80s turtles) – we’ll probably see some home-made arcade cabs running it soon after it launches.
New Cashless Payment System In Action – Game Payment
This doesn’t come with a fancy name, but if this could come in at well under the cost of a card system, then I could see it going places…especially since it appears to work in conjunction with existing payment systems like tokens. The app is available on both iOS & Android, although you’ll need the venue to use it to work as well. This appears to only have been rolled out in the UK so far, but I imagine that will expand as things settle out there:
The AT360 VR Gyroscopic Cabinet
This isn’t the first “R360-like” gyroscopic cabinet we’ve seen, but it might be the first to do this exact setup with VR (I also recall the Virtusphere, although that had the user running inside of a giant ball). If you’re curious about who might be working on a modern take of the concept, then check out the AT360. An article detailing it is here; Main website here.
The Namco Fish-Cutting Game
Thanks to Kyle Orland on Twitter for giving me a heads-up on this oddball game from Namco Japan, Cooking Master 2 – Knife Master (per the translation). I’d never seen this one before, but it’s rather neat. It’s essentially a merchandiser, but with a fun gimmick where you need to slice up the fish in certain ways to win:
料理の達人2 -包丁の達人（AC pic.twitter.com/hV3SRtQggB
— アタリショック（レトロゲームガチャガチャｗ (@goegoezzz) March 10, 2021
New Sega Promo For Mission: Impossible Arcade
Sega Amusements posted this image to their social media this week, taking the unusual step of highlighting one of their game designers as the game begins to ship to global markets. I spoke with Mr. “Oga-Shi” back in 2019 when the game was first revealed; If you were curious as to what else he has worked on, then this has you covered:
What’s On This Hyper Neo Geo 64 Dev Cart?
Watch to find out
Pac-Man On Pizza Hut Boxes
Bandai Namco is doing a promo with PH right now, and it’s working for getting people to talk about PH pizza again (can’t say I’ve heard much from them in a while 😛 ). It also uses a QR code so you can play Pac-Man on your phone.
https://twitter.com/tigheklory/status/1370792154293997573
Some arcade music from ZUNTATA:
Ending on a fun note with rage quits:
https://twitter.com/DonCalaveras/status/1370398348692357129
That’s all for this time – have a great weekend!
