Welcome to Newsbytes, the series of posts here on Arcade Heroes that rounds up byte-sized pieces of news from around the arcade and pinball worlds. We have struggled to bring out major stories for much of this month, what with multiple big releases being delayed into August, but hopefully that will end soon as we do know of several stories developing in the background. Until then, here’s some smaller happenings to tide things over:
Is SuzoHapp Out Of Business?
Let’s start with one of the bigger deals in the business, and the current main chatter of the amusement community. This is still a developing story, so the details may yet change. That said, over the past week, various customers dealing with arcade parts supplier SuzoHapp have been told that they have seemingly gone out of business. One of the principal posts about this is on the private Facebook group FEC Equipment For Sale, but others have also been making similar claims. On the flipside, there is no official press release as of this time, plus site friend Kevin Williams has been trying to get a hold of someone at SH for comment (including the CEO), and as of this writing, he has not received an answer. Usually silence is a passive way of acknowledging an asked question, however, SH haven’t been too consistent at putting out PR & news for the past couple of years.
We can give them the benefit of the doubt, and say that they may have closed up shop, but are currently in negotiations for the company to be bought out. There are multiple entities out there who would likely be interested, and that could also end up resulting in the company being sold in chunks to different parties too, as SH has international offices (so for example, they could be talking with one entity here in the US to buy up that part of the company, while another in Europe buys out that portion). Still, with so many customers out there and a reputation they’ve built up over the past few decades, they really should put out a statement to at least acknowledge if they are in that process or not, as people naturally fill a void like this with assumptions and hearsay.
For those unfamiliar with the name, SH have been one of the biggest suppliers of arcade parts for many years, offering just about everything you can imagine from joysticks to light-guns, power supplies to monitors, and everything in-between. They have also designed many parts, so if you’ve played an Area 51 or a Time Crisis II that has the distinctive blue or red pistols that weren’t original to the game, those would be a “SuzoHapp gun”. For a while though, a lot that they have offered has taken a bit of time to ship, and they also had made some policy changes that bothered a lot of customers (such as weird minimum part order requirements, for a time). SH also were big producers of coin doors; some people were upset not long ago when Raw Thrills changed out the coins doors they had been using, as previously they had all come from SH. They stopped making them, and everyone who used them had to pivot (so don’t blame the manufacturer).
Whether their many assets will be bought up by anyone else is still presently unknown, as of writing this. It would be a great shame for the whole SuzoHapp operation to be completely shut down, with no salvaging of the unsold stock or manufacturing infrastructure by someone, but as there’s been no sign of that happening so far, perhaps that’s how this is shaking out. We will keep you updated on if we hear anything else.
UNIS Picture Fantasy
Next, we have a surprise release from UNIS of an existing game into our part of the world. For a little while now they have been promoting their original trading card piece Picture Fantasy, despite it being specifically being said to be Asia-only in much of that. They even touted its high popularity over in China on a Linkedin post earlier this year, stating that it had surpassed 3,000 unit sales. Then out of nowhere, they announced this week that it has begun sales in the West too, after being quietly tested out in Canada to apparently good results.
This sudden launch is interesting, especially given we are still waiting on UNIS’ main release of the summer in the form of Cyberpunk 2077: Chrome Rush (the last word we heard was that cabinets are expected to arrive in their warehouse on the 30th – so we’ll probably have a post about that this week). They have been really pushing their card games out in Asia, so it seemed likely they might here as well; whether they topple Minecraft Dungeons Arcade remains to be seen, but this is clearly a shot across Raw Thrills’ bow in that regard.
Also, UNIS has just released single cabinet versions of Pickleball Rivals and Spin City.
Gradius Bumper Shooting
If the past few years have shown us anything about Konami, it is that they have started to really churn out redemption titles based on some of their classic properties for Round1USA, and we have yet another example of those now on test. Briefly alluded to at the end of the previous post, Gradius Bumper Shooting reskins their existing Smash Stadium card pusher into the first arcade release for the shooter in many years.
This takes the game and gives it the full card pusher experience, to the extent of featuring cards with artwork for several of the series’ entries over the years (and a neat Konami code reference). It does seem odd that they would choose this IP for such a game, especially given it could lend itself to a Centipede Chaos-type title quite well, but maybe it will earn better. Thanks to EspadaDelDios on Reddit for finding this one.
Multimorphic Pinball Tease Dungeon Crawler Carl
Rumors rarely remain such in the pinball community, and oddly enough, rumors in that segment tend to be accurate. One that’s been floating around out there recently is that the popular science fantasy book series Dungeon Crawler Carl would be turned into a pinball effort, and now Multimorphic has confirmed this. They will be fully showcasing it tomorrow starting at 12pm EST, which is also when pre-orders will officially open.
Here’s the Pinside thread talking about it, where people attending SDCC saw the first tease of the machine. That place is a good one to get pinball out in front of a wider audience, so hats off to Multimorphic there.
First Glimpses of American Pinball’s Cirqus Voltaire
That’s not all when it comes to pinball today. American Pinball, in addition to posting various job ads in recent times, has begun teasing that their next “reimagining” of a game is coming in the form of Williams’ 1997 classic, Cirqus Voltaire. What changes they’ll end up “reimagining” is anyone’s guess at this point (American do want to emphasize that they are not just remaking the game), although we have this tease of a topper to chew on for now.
It’s an interesting shift that American is making, although I do admit that I liked how they were risk takers and made several original designs that weren’t based on an existing IP. Granted, if that’s not what makes money on location or what the market wants, you need to pivot over to what works. Since Chicago Gaming seems to be backing off from their remakes (as they’ve been quiet for a long while now), someone else is going to pick up the slack.
JET Games Launches On The Level
This one isn’t on their website yet, but JET Games have just revealed a new videmption piece called On The Level. Below is the advert as posted on Linkedin; all it states about how it works is that it is “…a small footprint high earning game made in the USA. With five different power ups and three lives to spend”. I’ll have to check with JET to be sure, but I think that this might be their first game that is being produced here instead of in China.
I was going to just mention this in the Headlines at first, but had enough to add that it doesn’t hurt things here. That’s especially so when we’ve had such a drought of new game news this Summer. At first I thought that it was just a single-button game, but when I zoomed into the image below, I realized that it’s more like a variation of the old Taito Ice Cold Beer concept. Using a construction level tool, you balance the ball (not sure if it’s a real ball or digital) along the purple track. This looks like it’s based on a mobile game concept, or maybe Leon Amusement’s recent Speedy Ball, although with that physical controller dimension, that can help it stand out.
Speaking of standing out, a quick update on my GIGA SHOT from JET. I had to hire an electrician to install a second 20A circuit for the air compressor to work, which they finished up this past Tuesday. Since then, the game has been performing exceptionally well. Not that I doubted that people would be drawn to a big four player shooter, but it’s quickly catching up to my top gun game, Jurassic Park Arcade. This goes to show that if you can provide another hook (in this case, realistic metal guns and air compressor force feedback), then you don’t need to have a license to get people to play. The noise makes bystanders stop and look, and it can be heard a ways down the hall (although I did have a security guard asking me to turn the volume down, but I can’t do that with a popping air sound).
Headlines
Since it’s been a while, we’ve had a few headlines accumulating, but hopefully news itself will start picking up over the next few weeks.
New Trailers For Wahlap’s Demon Hunter 1892 + Asphalt Legends 9/Moto Blitz DX Plus – We will have some news on who will be distributing Demon Hunter and Moto Blitz DX Plus into the West very soon, so hold tight there. Also note that they have added cross-game play to Asphalt 9 + Moto Blitz, which is a cool addition.
John Wick: Continental Pursuit Has An Official Trailer – This starts shipping to North America next month
Sega Japan Holds Special Event At GiGO Akihabara 3rd With Yu Suzuki, NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang
Sega Amusements’ Justin Burke And The SegaWorld London Sonic Statue, 30 Years Apart
Bandai Namco Amusement Europe Offering ‘Summer Sizzler’ Deals On Godzilla & More
Read Up On A Long Lost Arcade Game That Would’ve Been Like Wipeout With Motorcycles, XLR8
Japan’s Amusement Expo 2026 Is Set To Have The Most Booth Space Since JAEPO 2013
IAAPA Expo Asia 2027 To Take Place In Osaka, Japan – Good news for the Japanese trade
UNIS Brought Ski Hero, Other New Games To Bowl Expo 2026
Betson & Raw Thrills’ Bowl Expo 2026 Booth Had Stranger Things
The exA Version Of AVATAR LEGENDS: The Fighting Game Was At SDCC – First time exA has been to SDCC
Stern Pinball Have Also Made A Successful SDCC 2026 Appearance – Dead Flip did some streaming from the event
Pop-A-Shot’s Pop-A-Palooza Event Nabs ESPN+ Coverage – First time I’ve seen arcade basketball get this attention
New AH Site Advertiser Ace Amusement Has A New Redemption Piece In Tomb Tumbler
Maimai DX Circle Plus Is Now Out On International Cabinets
StepManiaX Update #79 Adds Three More New Songs
More Promotion From Round1USA On DDR Stomp
An Interview With Two Key Taito ZUNTATA Members
True Arcade Heroes: The Late, Great Howell Ivy
If You Are A Member Of The Arcade Heroes YouTube Channel, You Now Have Free Access To A Chapter From My Upcoming Arcade History Book. This deals with the question about “which arcade game was the first to use a CPU”, where I discovered that
[Home Headlines]
Armadillo Racing Gets Its First Ever Home Port – Syvalion Also Comes To Arcade Archives
Arcade1Up Looks To Make That Comeback With A New OutRun Cabinet – Five classics on it for $629
Sega Opens Second Official Chinese Store In Beijing
Microsoft Lays Off 4800, 1600 Xbox Staff Affected
Halo Fans Don’t Appear To Be Happy With The Changes To The Halo: Combat Evolved Remake – This is just one of many examples I’m seeing that show that they’ve somehow removed a lot of the charm the OG had with retcons & more
Atari & Universal Ink A Deal To Turn 10 Atari IPs Into “Action” Movies – I have thoughts about this, but I’ll just say for now: why didn’t they license Haunted House as a part of that? Horror movies done right are “easy” money compared to other genres.
A New Resident Evil / D2-Style Game Is Coming To The Sega Dreamcast – No, this is not “the first game the Dreamcast has got in 24 years” as a bunch of clickbait headlines are proclaiming.
Some History On The Censored SNES Port Of Wolfenstein 3D
How About Snowboarding In Space?
Footage From the CES 1994 Event
Sony Electronics Gets Ratio’d On Post About The Greatness of Physical Music Media
Taito’s QIX Has Been Ported To The Atari 7800 – As Has Phoenix – The 7800 could do a very faithful port of many early 80s arcade games.
Unreleased Music For The Atari Jaguar Cart Of Tempest 2000 – A different version of all songs, including this one, were on the T2K music CD
Choppy Wood Comes To The Atari XL/XE
That’s it for this Newsbytes; which of today’s stories (e.g. the SuzoHapp situation) interests you most?
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