Welcome to another edition of Newsbytes, the posts on Arcade Heroes that get you up to speed with small bytes of news from around the arcade and pinball worlds. After a spate of major stories at the start of this month, things have slowed down once again, but now that the end of summer and September is in sight (along with a couple of big trade shows) we should see things start to pick back up. Think of this as the calm before the storm. Anyways, onto the news:
Golden Tee 2027
It’s been that time of year again where Incredible Technologies are throwing back the curtain on their latest Golden Tee update, and for the 2027 version, they are doing one or two things differently with their announcement blitz. One is that it will be available for free to anyone who has ordered the home editions of the game, with it hitting them from October 19th – although “limited locations” will get it first from September 21st, and the general arcade release happens a week after that.
As they usually do in the run up to release, IT have also been posting individual trailers of the new courses in the coming update. You can find them all here if you prefer to catch them all at once:
Then in another benefit for home players, IT have concurrently announced that they will be offering a new remastered edition of Golden Tee Fore! in easily-assembled DIY mini cabinets. For those unfamiliar with Fore!, it released way back in 2000, and was the fourth generation of the series. Between both of these they are certainly courting the consumer audience, which is no bad thing for business; especially when it still comes alongside some arcade focus.
Injustice Arcade Series 5
Slightly more surprising than Golden Tee 2027 is the recent announcement that Raw Thrills’ Injustice Arcade has received a Series 5 update, four years on from the arrival of its previous one in 2022. The game has actually been out of production for a little while now, but RT are treating the locations who still have it very well with this new content. It looks to be more expansive than Minecraft Dungeons Arcade‘s fifth series (which just had the Chicken Jockey card), featuring new ‘VS and Duo’ card types, rare foil variants, and more designs. The official announcement of this was effectively shadow dropped earlier this month, with little further information sent our way about it, although it does look as if it is already available to any location that wants it.
Also, now available to locations other than Dave & Busters is Stranger Things Arcade, which we recently confirmed has been shipping since July. There was going to be another piece of Raw Thrills news alongside these too, but due to certain outside circumstances connected to the game in question, it looks like that one will have to wait a little longer. Either way, we should be seeing more interesting new stuff out of them very soon…
IAAPA Expo Europe 2026
September sees the start of the next season of amusement trade shows, which as always kicks off with GTI Asia China Expo and IAAPA Expo Europe. This year, the latter will be held in London at the same venue as EAG, and we will have plenty of coverage once it comes along. Until that, there will be previews, and first among those is site advertiser Wahlap’s. They are bringing some of their biggest current titles, like the two Asphalt Plus games and Phantom Vanguard, but also a couple of smaller new curiosities. One is a video redemption title based on the children’s Miraculous Ladybug property, and the other seems like some sort of coin-op interpretation of a ‘irritating stick’ game. The latter isn’t unheard of in this business, though it’s been a while since the last ones.
Wahlap are also going to be a major part of GTI Asia China Expo, of course, where they may well be partnering with Bandai Namco for the first ever appearance of Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune Ignition outside of Japan, which just had its official Chinese name announced. Either way, expect lots of official photos from them out of the event, as well as our usual correspondence from those close to us who attend the shows out in China.
New Website + Blog For exA-Arcadia
Since they first opened back in 2018, exA-Arcadia maintained the same website. It was okay and worked for what it was, but it could’ve been better, and fortunately enough, it now is. This update comes with a nice new layout, new pages, more details, better game sorting (they’ve parsed out Coming Soon and Available Now, instead of mixing them), new icons on each game page to convey features, and much more. The site additionally mentions that their wiring standard, JVS Dash, is “under review with the JAIA JAMMA Video Standard Subcommittee” for “official adoption”. While we don’t really have wiring standards over here anymore (most everything runs on a proprietary I/O with USB and custom wiring), this will be a big deal in Japan, and bleed over elsewhere as more exAs get out there. They have JVS Dash I/O boards available for purchase too, which should help the standard show up.
As well as all that, exA are going to be updating their own official blog over at Medium more often now, after previously just using it for a post getting into the weeds on input lag. Keep your eyes on that page for future updates if you’re interested in exA’s future developments (or to here for helpful links to it whenever we cover them).
Big Lebowski Pinball Gets ‘Jesus Edition’
Dutch Pinball are a name in the pinball side of things that haven’t done a ton, but perhaps their biggest game to date has been The Big Lebowski, which is now getting its second production run (albeit limited to 300) as the Jesus Edition. The original has been out for over 10 years, and this update has new cabinet and backglass artwork, an illuminated bowling alley launch button, and various software updates (including new callouts), as well as “one final surprise closer to production”. Pinball News have conveniently combined the four short preview videos of it released so far into one here:
Stern To Reveal New Game Next Week
Finally, the current big talk on the pinball scene is surrounding what Stern will be unveiling behind closed doors at a special event next week. Thanks to PrimeTime Amusements, I can confirm that I will be there to check it out in person and film videos; I’ll also get a chance to play Transformers (which I still haven’t got to try yet). I do have to sign an NDA though, and will be under embargo until they say it’s good to go. I don’t think that will be for very long, at the very least, so expect to see it shared on the site and YouTube channel sooner than later.
What do you think or hope Stern’s next game is?
Headlines
Before we dive into them properly, I’m sure you’ve heard about the various celebrity deaths that occurred this week; particularly for the three major ones (Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, Peter Cullen), each had their own contributions to both gaming at large, as well as amusement. I once saw Dolly Parton’s entourage at IAAPA, as she and her team were checking out new attractions to possibly add to Dollywood. RIP.
Bandai Namco’s Dead Heat Unleashed + Maximum Tune 5 DX+ Are No Longer In Production – H/T to Ryte and BemBlake for the heads up on both of these (BNAA also have a new website design). There’s several reasons why this may have happened…
Taito’s Music Diver To End Network Service In Japan – But Will Stay Online In America – Kind of unprecedented for a rhythm game to do this, but it has always been slightly more appreciated over here at R1USA’s locations from the looks of things
S1ckH4ndsRBN Checks Out The New Jubeat Cabinets’ Latest Stateside Test Appearance
Maimai DX’s Online Maintenance Times Changed To Be Kinder To North American Players
Bandai’s Gundam Arsenal Base Card Game Is Updating To “Arsenal Commander” Soon
Marvelous Are Developing Several New Games For Domestic And International Arcades
Valo Motion To Launch New Game At IAAPA Expo Europe
Will We See Superwin’s New 4-Player Gun Game At IAAPA?
Oculeap To Debut Two New Attractions At GTI Asia China In A Couple Of Weeks
Throwback Jai-Alai Heroes Appears At The 2nd CEO Indie Games Showcase
Pop-A-Shot Leagues Are Growing Across America
New ICEBALL X Alley Roller Out Now From ICE
One Piece Medal Game To Get Tested In Japan Soon
When The Two Asphalt Racing Games Join Hands
They Create Worlds’ Podcast Ep #263 Covers The Late Howell Ivy
Eugene Jarvis Appears On Onion Software’s Stream For An Interview
Step Revolution Launches StepManiaX Updates #80 + #81
The First Update For Andamiro’s PIU Phoenix 2 Drops Next Week
[Home Headlines]
Atari’s Big Announcement Was Bringing 39 ActiVision Atari 2600 Games To New Physical Carts – This is really cool, as they’ll work on original hardware, as well as their Atari 2600+/7800+ series consoles, but if you want all of them together, it’ll set you back $1000 ($35 per cart if you just want the standard)
Rampage Creator Brian Colin Launches General Chaos – Major Snafu Kickstarter
Interesting Things Are Afoot Between Amiga And Commodore At Gamescom
Dead Or Alive’s Saturn Version Gets Its First Ever English Localization
PANIC Refunds Users On Tariff Charges – Haven’t heard of any of the big companies doing this as yet
The Zool Collection + An Updated Version Of Eclipse’s Monster Business Are Coming To The Atari Jaguar – Also, New Zool 64 Might Be Headed To N64 Soon
That’s it for this Newsbytes; which of today’s stories (e.g. Injustice Arcade Series 5) interests you most?
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