IAAPA Expo Asia 2024 is taking place from now until Thursday over in Bangkok, Thailand. Thanks to a couple of readers, we have some photos to share. Just note that I myself am not at this show, so I can’t answer any questions beyond what you’ll see below. That said, thanks to both Martin & Eric for sending me these pics!
Before we get started, it’s important to note that there were not many games at the show. It seems to be geared more towards networking than selling product. That said, there were still a few items, so here we are:
Chfuntek
I had never heard of this company before, but they had a new skiing game on hand called I-Skiing… or Digital Skiing, if you go off of the name in the attract mode. I’ll never understand why some of these Chinese companies give games two names. Anyways, this has an interesting slider control platform, which differs from your typical swivel ski footpad that arcade skiing games normally use. It also appears to generate wind from the mechanism at the bottom. This company appears to be involved in other simulators too; tennis being the obvious one pictured to the right, but there’s another arena that is cut off on the left:
DOF Robotics
This company based out of Turkey is quite active on the trade show circuit, and here they were showing off their latest Supernova motion simulator. These can use VR or a dome screen and have the range to put the riders upside-down. It is additionally worth noting that DOF won the 1st place IAAPA Brass Ring at this event for “Best Exhibit.”
Hong Kong Umedia
While I had not heard of this company before, they did have a surprise – the new Unico Nova Blast cabinet. This was at IAAPA 2023, although I had missed it there – perhaps this is the overseas manufacturer of the cab? It would make sense, given that they have the MVSX there, which Unico USA sold here as well:
You can see this in the image above, but for some reason there was tape holding the back part of the cab on. Damaged in delivery, perhaps? These haven’t started shipping yet as far as I know, so could perhaps be an earlier cab build with some errors instead.
Here’s the control panel, which includes some audio out jacks. I know on the Unico USA Facebook page there was a bit of discussion about these front ports, although I missed out on what the final decision was on whether they would be visible or not:
For a few of the other games at the booth:
HY Technology
I have seen games like this one around, but I don’t have much of an idea personally if Huangyue Technology is the originator of it, or another copycat (it is at least on their website). Interestingly enough, I’ve still only seen this concept in the East and Europe, not the US just yet. Here’s their videmption game, Crazy Hammer.
LAI Games & Superwing
LAI and one of their present partners out of China, Superwing, were proudly showing off a pair of SMASH DX cabinets, which, as you might know, recently began shipping to the market. Though only available in a two player setup here, it can link up to four units; the game was also on hand at Superwing’s own expo booth:
For something that might be of interest to some, here’s an image recently shared to LinkedIn from the game’s director, showing both a slightly different machine design with the original Extreme Off Road title it used in China, and different name for the game entirely on the cabinet it eventually shipped with here:
Superwing also had some videmption games, such as the fishing game Happy Ocean and a water gun game called Rescue Action:
Sega Amusements International
Sega Amusements did have a booth at the show but no games, so there isn’t much to say here. You can see how they have an adjusted marketing strategy through the mention of games shipping from their “factory in China” (first time I’ve seen that acknowledged; usually, games here ship from their Cardiff, UK warehouse if I recall correctly, but I don’t know all of the details of where they build everything).
Note that various companies, such as Trio-Tech, also did what SAI have and just had a space with sales reps and wall graphics instead of products. This might be due to some challenges in importing some of the products to Thailand, particularly for a show that only lasts for a few days. I have no idea what the distributor sector is like for Thailand, so in the event that you don’t have one already setup there, that could be why some other names are missing from the list.
UNIS
UNIS almost always has a large number of games to show off, and for this expo, it was no exception. They showed off various games that we’ve seen before, but there were a couple of new redemption pieces that had only been seen previously at AAA 2024. I want to say that they had Ducky Splash 2 back at IAAPA 2023 and not this new third iteration, but I’m no expert on Ducky Splash lore… so to speak:
The Rest
As mentioned by both of the tipsters who sent in photos, there just weren’t a lot of games there. When you don’t have the likes of Adrenaline, Bandai Namco or Raw Thrills, it does tend to make for a smaller show, and when even the few big companies like Sega Amusements who did attend have little to no product out, that doesn’t help for its size. That said, mainly by browsing my LinkedIn and YouTube, here are a few other companies that were there:
- EPARK (mainly cranes)
- Dreamfuns (ditto)
- Hologate with their Hologate Arena Infinite
- Yuto Games
- Zamperla
Thanks again to both Martin & Eric for their photos! Which of the games out of IAAPA Expo Asia 2024 interested you most?
