Japan Amusement Expo 2026: The Recap

This weekend, much of Japan’s amusement industry congregated in Tokyo for their biggest trade show of the year, Amusement Expo (formerly known as JAEPO). Though hardly the main event this November, with IAAPA still to come in just over a week’s time, it is as always full of some of the most recognizable names to arcade fans, and one or two new games to boot. So despite never having the chance to attend ourselves, we always try to get a full recap out shortly after the show has finished.

One person that was in attendance here was one of our closest, true blue Arcade Hero sources, and the photos you see at the start and end of this post are kindly by them. The rest have been sourced from Twitter/X, with links to the relevant posts featuring them where applicable; thanks also to Ted for helping with those and much of the information below.

Japan Amusement Expo 2026

For the skinny on Japan’s Amusement Expo if you’re new to it, since the revamp away from JAEPO this has always been held in November at the distinctive Tokyo Big Sight venue. One of the positives there for the Japanese trade is that it is in a much more central Tokyo location, whereas JAEPO’s (Makuhari Messe) was further out. On the other hand, the November dates now favored for it get in the way of those who wish to attend both IAAPA and the Tokyo show, but this has been talked about at length before, so we won’t dwell on it too much.

This year’s event was interestingly the largest show in terms of floor space that the Japanese amusement industry has seen since the first JAEPO in 2013, though a big part of that is undoubtedly down to the focus on crane and prize games. This is to the extent that instead of co-locating the additional booths that some companies have for the toy prizes themselves, these got their own separate halls for the first time, with stricter rules on photos from the sounds of things (not that we cover them anyway – they do well enough without us talking about it, but I find them to be one of the most boring products in the industry otherwise).

Bandai Namco Experience

Bandai Namco have in large part sustained themselves throughout this decade, as although they have tested some games that haven’t made it (looking at you, Bike Dash Delivery and Magi Blast), they’ve still kept the big releases coming with the likes of GoldStorm Pirates, and Taiko no Tatsujin‘s expansion into Western territories. That will continue with their presence at IAAPA this month, with one or two titles in common with what they had here. Their booth was the center of attention much of the time at this show too:

Biohazard RE:2 Arcade (Resident Evil 2: Arcade)

First up, the game that will be of most interest to many of you out there, which made its debut trade show appearance at this event. Before it comes to us at IAAPA, Bandai Namco rolled out the blood red carpet for Biohazard RE:2/Resident Evil 2: Arcade first here, with an elaborately themed area. We rarely ever see the likes of this for games at IAAPA, which is a slight shame (though it would be nice to think they could still ship this straight over to Orlando; or hire a haunted house outfit to set one up).

The game additionally received a special stage show, featuring Bandai Namco producer Shogo Ito and the series’ main creative lead from Capcom. This had plenty of direct capture footage, details on the cool-looking “Tactical Mode”, and the confirmation of a Spring 2027 release window for the title in Japan, Europe, and North America (depending on your translation, that may also include South America too). The stage show was streamed and can be viewed below:

Bandai Namco also has released a Japanese and English trailer for the game, although I don’t care for the dubbed screaming/laughing combo they put onto it.

Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune Ignition

Bandai Namco’s other headliner here was the long-awaited next major entry in the Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune series, which recently made waves elsewhere at the GTI Asia China Expo and made an appearance at the previous year’s Tokyo show under its original Speed Ignition name. It returned here in a much closer state to final, with the cabinets now the production version and software not far off of what will be made playable at arcades in the near future.

Like Resident Evil 2: Arcade, it also had a special stage event, however this one was not livestreamed. They have promised highlights from it will appear on YouTube at a later date, but for now, we can glean that the game will be launching in Japan first in early Spring 2027, with other regions to follow. Exactly when that will include us remains officially unknown, but we’ll surely know somewhere down the line.

Penlalive

Though not as big a name as the above two, Bandai Namco have been persistent in trying to push their new original rhythm game, Penlalive. This first showed up on test in early 2025 under the name of Penda Beats, and has been through numerous changes since then (though the core concept still applies). In case you missed previous coverage of it, players use two ‘wotagei’ penlight controllers to slide and shake their way through popular J-Pop and anime music. Though there have been prolonged periods between its tests, that is not uncommon with Bandai Namco these days, and their continued support for it would seem to suggest it is releasing at some point soon (in Japan at least).

Others

Elsewhere on Bandai Namco’s booth, they also had their usual special area dedicated to their existing major rhythm game Taiko no Tatsujin. At the time of the event, this was unfortunately one of the titles hit hardest by the current ALL.Net outage in Japan, however the cabinets here were in fact online and playable via a temporary server solution. Not only that, they brought along something that first appeared at one of their larger locations this summer: the giant Don to Dekkai Omatsuri da Don attraction edition of Taiko. The full extent of it can be seen in this video reviewing the show:

Other games of theirs seen here included the latest update to Bandai’s Gundam card game, and the new One Piece coin pusher, which seemed to be getting lots of play too. Despite both of those properties being bigger than ever out West, it’s hard to see us getting those, though you never know. Conversely, Pac-Man Whack-The-Ghosties and the Gator Panic Kiddie Ride also appeared, albeit only as reference exhibits for overseas products as they are not sold in Japan.

Konami Arcade Games

As mentioned in our preview, all eyes will be on Konami this month, as they are also attending IAAPA for the first time in many years. Their product will be represented both on their own booth and at Genda’s, making for a showcase that won’t be too far off of what they had here (but split between two smaller spaces, rather than one big one). Konami’s North Amercian expansion and renewed push for many of their Bemani games – which recently graced the cover of Japan’s storied Weekly Famitsu magazine – has put them in the good books with some… though there’s always room for improvement 😉

Crash Bazooka

Something that appears to have been a sleeper hit on Konami’s booth is this new attention-grabbing shooter, which was part of a litany of titles they tested at Round1USA this summer. It has now come to Japan, though it seems they are still undecided on whether it will release as-is there due to its sheer size. That goes for both the cabinet and the titular bazooka itself, which according to players weighs 4kg and has some very loud sound effects coming out of it for that added immersion. The game looks a little more simple, though that would be down to it being made as a video redemption title. Since Japan doesn’t have a ticket redemption scene like we do though, it’ll come with some changes.

Jubeat U’nit

More prominent than Crash Bazooka and also receiving plenty of interest was the new cabinets and software for Konami’s cube-shaped wonder, one of numerous Bemani rhythm games they naturally had on hand at their booth. This was recently revealed to be named Jubeat U’nit, and fans will be pleased to hear it is among the confirmed titles for Konami’s assault on IAAPA 2026. That seemed likely with it receiving more than one Stateside location test of late, but it’s novel and almost unprecedented for this to be happening before even Japan has seen them release. It probably won’t get the exhibition match between pro players that it had here though:

Pop’n Music Happy

One surprise that Konami announced and debuted here this time was an upcoming new update for Pop’n Music (the 30th, to be exact…), which only recently received a new cabinet and attendant game edition just under a year ago. This seems to indicate those have done pretty well; they did see it receive a wide rollout in the US for the first time, both at Round1USA and the first independent locations to receive Konami games, so perhaps that has helped restore faith and fortune in it enough for upgrades to come along more regularly.

Others

Konami did also have one more new update to a rhythm game of theirs, but this one was in fact subject to a photo ban. However, we know that this was their guitar and drum game Gitadora, which received new cabinets last year. A common complaint for these was that despite the software supporting it, these bizarrely did not use 4K 120fps monitors. Konami are now evidently trying to rectify this with an upgrade to them… although the fix is so early, it apparently involves smaller monitors being grafted on top of where the existing ones are, resulting in much bigger bezels. This is likely why the photo ban was in place, at least, so expect it to be improved.

As mentioned in the preview, they also had a big showcase for Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba Nichirin Battle Slash, which recently released in Japan and is well on its way to join the Bemani rhythm games in receiving a wider US rollout. And one thing Konami did not say they’d exhibit in advance was their newest horse racing medal game, which we saw on test recently. This has the neat innovation of now using LED panels underneath the moving mechanical horse models, for some mixed reality immersion. These will be destined for casinos if we get them though…

Sega Fave

As alluded to before, this expo couldn’t have come at a worse time for one company in particular, as Sega’s emergency maintenance of their ALL.Net online service in the wake of its major cyber attack last week drags on. It seems Sega are in hot enough water that they’ve had to restore the Bandai Namco games that are presently tied into the network as a trial first, but all of their own titles (e.g. Maimai and Chunithm) remain offline for the foreseeable.

In comparison, much of what they had on their booth here seems much less important, especially given the only video game that was planned to appear (Initial D The Arcade) had to be axed at the last minute due to the crisis. Instead, the focus was solely on their UFO Catcher series and medal games (including a multi-game pachislot piece called Smarevo), as well as a few small kiddie rides based on Paw Patrol and Curious George that we’ve seen before.

On a more positive note, the show’s annual Amusement Music Festival, in which the four main Japanese producers of arcade rhythm games (including Sega, whose star musicians like Takenobu Mitsuyoshi often spearhead it) collaborate on a live DJ set of music featured in their many titles, still went ahead. Given that their games heavily rely on ALL.Net, Sega did make a statement on the matter in this, though it doesn’t tell us anything new.

So although this show looked mostly disappointing for Sega, at least IAAPA 2026 will have House of the Dead Reawakened and one or two other things at Sega Amusements’ booth… and maybe next time we’ll get to see Sonic Racing CrossWorlds Arcade DX gracing the floor of Japan’s Amusement Expo. It does seem that the latter was announced quite early, so expect to see it turn up first sometime next year, rather than during the final weeks of 2026.

Taito

Both Konami and good old Taito are fortunately not struck down by the ALL.Net crisis, although in the latter’s case, they now have fewer titles running in active service that could’ve been impacted anyways. That said, they had a booth here nonetheless. This was off in the corner and smaller than the above three names, but had a lot of variety packed into it (even if that doesn’t include true video games now).

Taito did bring a couple of small innovations that have flown under the radar for most. One is a new experience for their Cube immersive reality room, Juban Dice or Die, which looks like a fun light-gun piece (it’s a shame none of these have come West). And someone at the company is clearly interested in mixed reality, as they also had a neat transparent screen display featuring their most famous properties.

Besides those, most of the focus was on their new Capricco Next crane, but of the select few non-prize games they had here, most were kid-tainment imports from China. Two big examples of that they are carrying were Wahlap’s Eggy Party Step Dash and Eggy Hop, which are set to appear on the company’s own booth at IAAPA soon. Bub and Bob could be seen playing those aplomb:

For a bit of history, Taito did additionally wheel out what they tout as the second ever Japanese crane game, the Crown 603 (it is in fact a copy of an Italian one, which Sega also took some inspiration from). Open calls were made to locate any surviving examples of the 602 last year, as Taito do not store many of their own machines in their archive, and it only turned up its successor… but they have now extensively restored it.

Other Exhibitors

With this Amusement Expo being the biggest amusement trade show to hit Japan since JAEPO 2013, the above four names were not the only ones in attendance. Though many of the others were focused on cranes and prizes, there are a few that had some things of interest, so let’s reel them off here before we wrap things up.

One of the biggest surprises was a certain game on the small Andamiro Japan booth. They have still attended Japanese trade shows from time to time in recent years, but never with the flagship title they had here – Pump It Up. This game has a bit of Japanese history, with not all of it being good due to the legal actions of a certain Kompany, however Andamiro are clearly looking to try again. This is especially interesting to see in light of StepManiaX‘s recent movements in Japan, though that one did not appear here via any distributor. Nevertheless, could some dance game competition come back over there?

Bandai Namco Technica, Namco’s subsidiary for importing American and Chinese product into Japan, had their own booth adjacent to the main BN one as always. Some wondered if we’d be seeing Godzilla Kaiju Wars making an appearance here, given the IP at hand, BNT selling previous Raw Thrills titles, and the new Pro model launching soon. There was no sign of this, though, and they instead had the smaller VR Strike model of 3MindWave’s Alpha Ops VR Strike, and interestingly enough, Adrenaline Amusements’ Disney Speedstorm Arcade. This is apparently set to be downsized and translated for a possible Japanese release, though the cabinets seen here are the ones we have.

Despite not releasing any arcade machines of their own for some time, Capcom have retained many of their locations in Japan and frequently license out their properties to other companies, meaning they continue to appear at these shows. On this occasion they were largely promoting their active entertainment “Crazy BANeT with CAPCOM ALL STARS” location concept, including an unusual Street Fighter-themed motion sensor attraction that detects how high you can punch, just like Ryu and Ken. Could be fun if this was made smaller and commercialized:

Marvelous recently made an interesting pledge to develop and release “a large number of machines” of theirs not just in Japan but overseas, though what those are we do not know. Here, they simply exhibited their flagship Pokemon Frienda piece for kids and the recent Trywall prize game, however it’s possible they were showing off something else behind closed doors or had a strict photo ban.

One dark horse that set up shop here is Peropero, who are promoting a mini arcade cabinet running the popular Steam rhythm game Muse Dash 2. We have been keeping small tabs on this for a little bit now, as it has already appeared at this year’s Bitsummit indie game event in Japan and the GTI Asia China Expo. The makers are apparently looking to repeat the success they’ve had installing it at shopping centers in China; time will tell if they do elsewhere:

Standby Amusement aren’t a household name, but they have been bringing various pieces out of China into Japan in recent times. This now evidently includes a fun videmption Whack-A-Mole variation that JET Games have carried as Cheddar Chase, but Standby are calling it Cheese Vs Mouse. Despite there being titles from Ace Amusement at last year’s show though, it seems that there was little other non-crane Chinese product there on this occasion, besides the previous examples mentioned.

Finally, although virtually no traditional stick and button games could be found at the show this time, Sanwa Denshi had a small spot as ever. They deserve some props for keeping the arcade flame burning with all kinds of parts:

Overall

In summary, despite the obvious trend towards cranes and prizes, this year’s Tokyo show seems to have had lots to go around when it comes to the likes of rhythm and experience-based video games. Standouts of those were of course Resident Evil 2: Arcade, Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune Ignition, and Jubeat U’nit, alongside the surprises from other exhibitors just mentioned. Both Bandai Namco and Konami showcasing titles that will very soon be shown off again at IAAPA is particularly great to see, with only the wider circumstances affecting Sega putting a slight dampener on things.

Next year is already set to be another interesting one for Japanese trade shows of interest to us, and not because of Amusement Expo. None other than IAAPA Expo Asia is coming to Japan next time – and in Osaka, rather than Tokyo. It remains to be seen whether any of the big Japanese names will appear there and assert themselves among the usual attendees of the Asian show… and which of them might be absent. But that’s all still to come in June 2027.

Until then, we have IAAPA to look forward to, which will now take up much of our focus in the coming weeks. Thanks once again to our true blue half-Welsh Arcade Hero and Ted for the assistance with this. Which of the new arcade games seen at Japan’s Amusement Expo 2026 interest you the most?