We’re on the last day of the second quarter of 2026, which means it’s time to wrap up the news of the month. We saw several games that made their first appearance at Amusement Expo 2026, but thanks to several global factors causing the prices of components and things like plastics to skyrocket, this caused several delays on games that were supposed to ship out last month.
As an additional note, International Bowl expo 2026 got started in Nashville, TN on Sunday, although the trade show portion doesn’t start until tomorrow. We’ll share any relevant updates we get from that in a separate post. Some (but not all) companies we’ll talk about below are attending the show.
Let’s get you up to speed now as we move into July:
On Test: Jubeat & Crazy Bazooka (Konami)
In case you were wondering whether or not the return of Konami to the USA was serious or not, well these two games on test should be a good indicator of that. It’s too bad that they aren’t calling Jubeat something with a subtitle or “New Jubeat” or something along those lines to help distinguish it from the original (which just forces us to rename the original with something like “Jubeat 2008” or “original Jubeat” anyways). Two units are on test at the Round1USA Puente Hills Mall location in California. I still think that the top bezel should expand to cover the whole screen, but outside that, it will be interesting to see how this does over here. Here’s a little footage from a recent test of the game in Japan.
Crazy Bazooka is a completely new design that was also announced as testing at Round1. Using a bazooka as a controller is a rare sight in arcades, particularly one of this size. This appears to be another videmption game that Konami is trying out where you blast different targets for points & tickets. Judging by the images on the screen there, I would guess that the more of a building you destroy/bowling pins you knock over/UFO crane things you hit, the more tickets you get.
Out Now: Typhoon Shockwave
Triotech has begun shipping their latest iteration of the Typhoon dual seat motion system, although I haven’t been able to confirm exactly when this started shipping out or a price. This one is the biggest Typhoon yet, featuring cinematic & colorful graphics displayed across two giant monitors. There are six new virtual coaster rides that it comes with, each lasting around three minutes or so. Has anyone seen this out “in the wild” yet?
Shipping Soon?
There have been some titles we’ve been waiting on hearing about since Vegas in March, but as mentioned at the top, various factors have played into delaying them. Here’s the latest of what I know on a few pieces:
G.I. Joe – Tank Battle (JET Games USA) – This one is waiting on final licensor approval, with a warehouse full of the games waiting to ship. If not met, that could entail additional changes to whatever it is they desire (hardware or software, although it sounds like it’s all on the software side). They are at Bowl Expo, but the game isn’t visible from this angle (if it’s there), while they do have a new game on hand called Big Toss.
Disney SpeedStorm Arcade (Adrenaline) – Part delays have pushed this back to July. The game has been on test and there should be some minor changes to the software. Hopefully the shipping on those pieces resolves quickly.
Nickelodeon Kart Racers Arcade (Andamiro USA) – This one has some test units out there since May, and earlier this month a “limited number of production units” were supposed to have been sent out. I’ve been trying to get some additional info/clarification on the last part, but no luck as of yet.
Andamiro is also preparing to launch Pump It Up Phoenix 2 next month, and I believe it will be at Bowl Expo 2026 (as would NKRA, I would expect). I will not be attending, but will see what info we can glean from the show. The official Pump It Up channel has been posting some videos showing what to expect from this one, and so far it looks like a strong update:
exA-Arcadia titles (Avatar, G.I. Joe, Invincible VS) – So far we have only heard of “summer” as the release date for these, which can be any time between now and September. There’s been no indication on when they’ll ship out, same with various games we saw at IAAPA which have been known about for a while now. I would guess that AVATAR will be first, since they’ve been showing that off the most. G.I. Joe would make sense for the 4th of July time frame, but I’ve been wondering if both it and JET’s take on the IP would hit the market at the same time.
Atari Recharged titles by Alan-1 (Breakout, Caverns of Mars, Yars’ Revenge) – Originally said to be reaching production in June, I’ve reached out to Alan-1 for comment and not heard back. While the games are on their website, they are using renders and there has been no news about them and any changes made since Vegas. Surprisingly, Yars’ Recharged has garnered the most attention of the three individual videos I made about these a few months back; like Gravitar, this one is a bit esoteric for today’s players, but that might be more interest from this having some popularity from retro gamers and it’s never been in arcades (Caverns of Mars hasn’t either, but it’s not as well known an IP thanks to Atari ignoring its existence up until a few years ago).
Which of these new arcade games interest you the most?
Discover more from Arcade Heroes
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Leave a Reply