Welcome to Newsbytes, an occasional post that curates quick bytes of news from around the arcade, pinball, and amusement world. Due to the deluge of news coming out of IAAPA 2023, this series has taken a little hiatus, but it is time to catch up where we can.
I also want to take this opportunity to welcome Ted to the contributor’s group here at AH. While there are a number of writers who can post things to the site, it’s usually just myself; Ted has great insight into arcade games and a way with words so I am happy to have his input here. He is busy with a few other things at the moment so will currently be pitching in on proofreading and sourcing information on my pieces for the most part, but that doesn’t rule out a self-penned article or two 🙂
If you’ve missed anything from the show, and all of the new game announcements we saw there, check out the links below. I’m not 100% done with IAAPA at the moment but I should complete everything next week.
IAAPA 2023: The Raw Thrills Round-up
New Fighters For Arcades: Omen of Sorrow
IAAPA 2023: The Sega Amusements Round-up
IAAPA 2023: Pinball (Stern, Jersey Jack, American, Chicago Gaming)
IAAPA 2023: The LAI Games Round-up
IAAPA 2023: The JET Games Recap
IAAPA 2023: Andamiro USA’s Game Line-up
IAAPA 2023: Coastal Amusements Recap
IAAPA 2023: New games From Wahlap & Amusement Source International
Nova Blast City By Unico USA
One thing that I sadly missed at IAAPA was the Unico USA booth. Unico had previously released the Neo Geo MVSX and the 4:3 format LCDs. They used the IAAPA opportunity to unveil their next product, the Nova Blast City. This product follows in the foot steps of the MVSX, instead using a Japanese candy cab aesthetic. I’m waiting on some more info about this but it is going to have another appearance tomorrow, showing up at the 2023 KC Retro event.
Big Buck Reloaded Updates Available
As of yesterday, the new update to Big Buck Hunter Reloaded should have rolled out to online units. I have one and it still hasn’t shown an indication of updating yet; That seems to happen at times with these updates though. Big Buck player Federico R. has the update and played through The Walking Dead and I imagine that many locations have it available already. This one is not coming to the system via the net; It’s so large, you will receive a kit (see below). Here’s the Caribou update as seen at IAAPA:
Details on the kit:
Speaking of updates, I have updated the New Releases page to reflect changes to that list.
Goldstorm Pirates – The Trailer
Bandai Namco didn’t bring Goldstorm Pirates to IAAPA (as it’s still a year out), but that didn’t stop the Japanese arm of the company from promoting it and Bike Dash Delivery during the recent Japan Amusement Expo. Here’s the tweet with the trailer; I also discuss it in the below video:
Galactic Tank Force SE Trailer
Also in trailers is this intentionally goofy spoof promo for American Pinball’s Galactic Tank Force SE. This exact model wasn’t at IAAPA unfortunately, but it is available – in limited quantities. I wouldn’t count on American doing the Stern thing and doing another run of their limited models, so once these are gone, they’re gone for good. Get them while you can!
Avian Knights Wins Award
Alan-1, the creators of the upcoming indie arcade game Avian Knights, can now add “award winning” to their marketing copy. The won in the “Pushing Boundaries” category for the Utah Game Developers Choice Awards 2023, held at the University of Utah this afternoon. These awards are for recognizing local developers, one of which was Avalanche Software (who created the popular Hogwarts Legacy earlier this year). Congrats to Alan-1!
Daytona USA 2 Deep Dive
Digital Foundry takes their signature plunge into the pseudo-console release of Daytona USA 2, but in the process tells the viewer about the history of gaming in the late 90s. This nostalgia for Sega’s arcade superiority of this era is what many Sega fans still chase today whenever they are judging the company’s current releases and technology. If you want to better understand all that history – along with some discussion about why Daytona USA 2 was so good – this video essay is a great watch, especially in tandem with their earlier piece about the original Daytona and its early 2010s remasters.
As a bonus, this one also proffers a comparison between the original and Daytona Championship USA, which hadn’t been released at the time of said earlier video’s upload. DF does a commendable job of laying out why DCUSA was a faithful remake of the original game; I would just note that he isn’t using the “New Season” edition, which further improved the handling and graphics of the DCUSA experience.
Speaking of arcade history, I’d also recommend this fantastic video about arcade piracy in Britain.
Headlines
Cineplex Announces Strategic Sale of Player 1 Amusement Group – I don’t know much more than the article but the short of it is that P1AG is a big distributor (they had a booth at IAAPA) and they will no longer be under Cineplex’s control, but they will continue to supply to them. Seeing a $155m deal from the distribution side of our industry isn’t common, but for now we’ll just have to wait and see how it shakes out.
Cosmic Ops Indie Arcade Game Coming Soon – I’ll need to ask Joe at Indie Arcade Wave more on this one
Product Pages Posted For Omen Of Sorrow: Arising Chaos and Phantom Breaker Omnia
Joypolis Tokyo Is Doing Something With Transformers Human Alliance Special
It Wasn’t At IAAPA, But Yuto Games Has A ‘New’ Motorcycle Arcade Racer
It’s A Year Old But Taito’s Bub Check’s Out Taito’s Cube MXR Room
Sony’s Wonderverse Looks Pretty Cool
Numskull Space Invaders, 1/4 Size Replica
Gameacon Is Coming To Palm Springs, CA and Stamford, CT Next Summer – No arcade component yet but one might be added
[Console/TV] Bethesda’s Fallout Is Coming To Amazon Prime
[Console] Xbox Game Pass is not coming to Switch nor PlayStation
[Console] Sega Will Likely Be Unveiling Some Big New Titles At The Game Awards
[Console] Grand Theft Auto 6 Trailer Will Land On Tuesday
[Console] Once, There Was Almost WaPeach
[VR Console] Meta’s VR Financial Woes Continue – They will continue for the foreseeable future
[VR] HTC Launches The Vive Ultimate Tracker – Hologate is already jumping on these
[Retro Console] The Atari Jaguar Turned 30 Back On Thanksgiving; Bonus, found footage of the never finished 3D game for the Jag, Dactyl Joust
[Retro Console] Great Trailer For An Upcoming Game Boy Color Game, The Fallen Crown
That’s all I could find for this round. Have a great weekend and if there’s an arcade in your area, be sure to go and throw a few dollars their way to help them out.
