Welcome to Newsbytes, a weekend collection of news from around the arcade & pinball worlds. It’s been a bit slow in this regard for the past few weeks, which is why it’s been a little while since we’ve done it, but I was able to cobble together just enough to go to the wire this time.
Taito To Launch The Egret II Mini In March 2022
You’ll have to wait a bit for it, and import one, but Taito is now joining the likes of the Neo Geo Mini and Sega’s Astro City Mini cabinets with their own retro candy cab remake. It’ll probably be a while before they do so on the Vewlix, although this should please fans of 90s Taito games for now. It also has a cool screen flip feature, so you can play certain games in TATE mode as they were original designed to do; It also will have different control panels, so you can enjoy the likes of Arkanoid Returns. Then there’s the video out and SD card support to complete out the featurs. The official page for it is here (Japanese).
StepManiaX May Update
In addition to this software update of songs, there is news on the hardware too – anyone interested in grabbing a machine has had to wait for a while, but a shipment of cabinets arrived at the port from China and things have been moving along in that regard with shipments going out to various parts of the US this past week. I’ve been one of those waiting for a couple of months on this, so it will be great to start the summer off with this machine. I’ll also try and get an unboxing/install video done for this one:
Blazing Chrome AC Unboxing & Play
Speaking of that, for those who follow the site on YouTube, you’ve probably seen this already, but just in case you missed it, here is my latest acquisition, thanks to the exA-Arcadia. Blazing Chrome AC is a lot like Super Contra or Metal Slug, although the three melee characters also give the game an unexpected Strider vibe.
I have been contemplating cutting some commentary for this one and putting it as a Member-only video, although one of the things that caught me off guard when I played this was the length. I guess I was expecting something like a half-hour, but instead, there’s an hour of play (not counting that there are two additional difficulty modes!). Recording commentary during the capture would’ve made more sense than to do it after the fact, although perhaps I’ll just cut it up into something else that’s fun 🙂
Looking For A Job In The Amusement Industry? CoolfunJobs.com Might Help
CoolFunJobs.com is a new website that was designed to help amusement businesses find employees. This doesn’t just cover arcades, but pretty much all forms of out-of-home entertainment, including waterparks and even a dollar bill acceptor manufacturer, is on there. The site is the brainchild of several people involved on the trade organization side of the industry and is certainly the kind of thing that is well overdue. The current map shows various jobs available around the USA & Canada – perhaps other regions of the world will be added in the future.
Making Avengers Infinity Quest
Members of the AIQ design team sit down to talk about how the machine came to be, offering insight into how it plays as well.
Pinball Adventures Announces Elements
This week I discovered a newcomer to the pinball scene by the name of Pinball Adventures. Based out of Canada, they have several ambitious projects in the works, although at this point they only have videos of Punny Factory and this medieval fantasy game that they are calling Elements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uSQXP_KTj8
I’m thinking that this trailer is intentionally cheesy, with the audio slightly out of sync(or it’s an odd dub), or at least I hope so 😛 This looks quite interesting and fun, although this isn’t the first time we’ve seen someone pop up with great ideas, then for whatever reasons they don’t deliver. I hope that doesn’t end up being the case with them, but experience teaches caution (that and it’s odd to have so many pinball concepts being promised when it can take a lot of time and money just to make one). Still, they seem to have a great grasp on what makes for a fun game so here’s hoping they make it.
Xeno Crisis Neo Geo Attract Video
(H/t Arcade Belgium)
Here’s a game that would also be a nice fit on the exA, but for the moment it’s headed to the Neo Geo MVS via Bitmap Bureau (it is already available for a number of classic & modern platforms, so it isn’t difficult to come by, regardless). As you can see from here, it has vibes from Sega’s classic Alien Syndrome, with a little bit of Smash TV thrown in there. The game is available to pre-order for the MVS here and runs for £299; I’m not sure if there is anything different about this port, other than this attract sequence?
Virtua Fighter Retrospectives
Sega had been rolling these out one day at a time, covering the full range. You can find them all on either the Sega America or Sega Forever channels, but here are two:
Hungry, Hungry Hippos & Hatchet Hero on Location
I’m not sure if the D&B manager who posted this on LinkedIn wants credit or not (sometimes people get in trouble for these things), if so, I’ll update this post. That said, these are all at Dave & Busters now, so anyone can take a pic.
Anyways, now we have a live look at Adrenaline Amusements’ Hungry Hungry Hippos, as well as Bay Tek Entertainment’s Hatchet Hero (an axe-throwing arcade game that is supposed to have a different name when it launches for everyone else later in the year):
AH Reader BemBlake provided more photos of Hatchet Hero from one of his local D&Bs. The cabinet is much larger than I initially thought, with it providing an enclosure to stand in. This uses foam axes, where 1-2 players toss them at something akin to a dartboard. A conveyor belt returns the axes to the players, and you try and get as many points as you can before time is up. While this is not listed on Bay Tek’s website yet, I’ve heard through the grapevine that the version that will eventually be made available for the rest of the industry will be called Axe Master, although I also wonder if that will fly since Sega has a prize merchandiser by the same name out there. Blake also mentioned that this was a blue swipe game, which meant that it was NOT setup for ticket payout, which is interesting (and unusual for Bay Tek titles).
Headlines
Arcade Belgium Interviews Sega Producer Shinichi Ogasawara – I’d definitely recommend giving this a read!
New Trailer For Elevator Action Invasion – This video isn’t from UNIS it seems, so I don’t know what to make of it
Industry Veteran Ken Anderson Passes Away – RIP Ken
The UK Arcade Collector With 1,000+ Machines
VLOG About Minecraft Dungeons Arcade – BTW, the new issue of Replay Magazine has an interview with WIll Carlin & George Petro of PLay Mechanix where they offer up a bunch of details on the development process to MCDA, as well as how it plays.
Bandai Namco Celebrates 20 Years of Taiko No Tatsujin
Joypolis To Come To Europe? -There’s a lot of maybes there still, but it wouldn’t surprise me, given how much press Super Nintendo Land has generated for the Big N
That’s all for this weekend – thanks for reading and see you on the next post!
The “Egret II Mini” finally has a good size for mini arcade. I also like the trackball option, which is pretty rare these days. Probably not affordable as a Japan exclusive.