The wait has lasted for more than a decade, but for US fans of Sega’s “washing machine game” from Japan, properly known as Maimai DX, that wait is at long last over. Since last week, the first official cabinets for the West have been beginning to appear Stateside at Round1 locations, and the game has commenced operations here. Though there is not 100% official confirmation from all parties involved on where the rollout is going, as more and more installations continue to pop up out there we’ve decided to cover it, and we’ll update with any official word once it is available. Onto what’s known already…
Maimai DX Starts Shipping Out Across The USA
The saga behind Maimai is a long and storied one that’s been covered plenty on AH before, with it having created a strong influence all across the planet since originally releasing in 2012. An instant success in Japan and Asia, despite not getting any kind of official support (nor a mobile or console port) in the West up until now, it found a fanbase of very dedicated fans here too. For a long time, it was thought that Sega would never give it any official support in North America (a couple location tests for it in 2016/17 went nowhere), but that all changed back in May 2024 when it suddenly reappeared on test. It then saw its first US trade show appearance at Amusement Expo earlier this year, and as we inquired into it, Sega Amusements gave a tentative “August/September” timeframe on shipping.
After an appearance at Anime Expo and the confirmation it would first rollout to Round1USA, news on it went sparse… until just last week, when rumblings of Round1 locations making official space for it started to spread, and the game ultimately debuted at their Burbank, CA store. They went all in on it too – not just grabbing one pair of Maimai’s, but three (as the below photo by randomkidonthestreet shows):
Today, the official R1USA Twitter/X account also posted that the game is being setup at their flagship Puente Hills Mall location. According to this official tracking page, they currently have five locations that have the game, with the assumption that many more will be filling out this list soon (Ted heard Utah or Denver may be next). Who will be the first non-R1USA location to grab one is a still a mystery, however, others who have ordered the game should expect to see theirs pretty soon.
There are still some hurdles for it – one is a relatively small (but still existent) number of song removals (which is a matter of licensing), although it’s looking like that is being taken care of. Then, there’s the network maintenance period. Part of it takes place during prime business hours. Many fans are nicely asking for them to fix this, although there isn’t an indication yet if they will. As an operator, this is something that they should get corrected ASAP – granted, it can be played in offline mode, but most players who will be willing to put a lot of money into these machines won’t play it unless they’re online. Perhaps there’s more to it than I’ve heard about, but seems like they just need a server out West that can do this maintenance (that or find a way to speed it up so the machines are only down for minutes instead of hours).
I have attempted to reach out to several contacts at Sega Amusements for more official details on where things will go from here, but most of them are busy with IAAPA Expo Europe at the moment, so that will have to wait a little while. Still, we hope to get more official information “from the horse’s mouth” to pass along to you. I’m not terribly surprised that Sega didn’t have an official press release and all that ready for it – most of the time, new arcade games just start showing up with little to no fanfare at all. The difference here is that you already have a loyal and interested fanbase who is eager to find the game near them.
We’re keeping an eye on this and will update you once we have more major news to share. Until then, what do you think of Maimai DX’s official USA rollout finally beginning?
