We Dancing Online making waves in China & Taiwan as IGS preps We Dancing Online 2

Newsfeeds 880 and 881 via 

It was only in May that we covered We Dancing Online by IGS and we saw that the game had a huge following at GTI 2010. Since then a national competition was held for the game in China and they already have a We Dancing Online 2 ready to go (pictured above). As you can see from the pictures by going those posted links, the game draws in pretty large crowds. If you are unfamiliar with WDO, it’s like DDR but for the hands with four directional buttons to use. Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report has some questions he would like to throw out into the ether about the game and it not getting attention outside of China or Taiwan:

Industry Question – Why is no one thinking about making “We Dancing Online”?
– Would it be too difficult to translate… no
– Would it be too difficult to license… no
– Would it be too difficult to play… no

But for a US amusement distributor who is looking for a safe life it is too difficult to understand!

It also isn’t the price as the game was recently listed on a Wahlap pricing list at $4800 which puts the game far below any other music game I know of. There shouldn’t be any fear of an ASCAP reprisal either – that is something that has only affected games using music from American bands, with something like Guitar Hero. For example, DJ Max Technika is completely safe from the ASCAP problem because of the music used.  Obviously the name recognition for WDO outside of China and Taiwan is near zero so it wouldn’t draw such crowds anywhere else but if the game is really that good (and inexpensive) then it shouldn’t take long for it to start making fans.

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Seen at Hollywood Bowl, UK – Beatbox Recording Studio

(Thanks to Kieran for the tip and photos)

You might recall that back in 2009, Raw Thrills had been looking into releasing an American Idol game, where a person would record themselves singing, being put into a video and having that video sent via e-mail or burned to a DVD. That game was canceled but it appears that someone liked the idea enough to produce something similar to that – minus the American Idol theme of course. Called the Beatbox Recoding Studio, one cabinet has been seen at the Hollywood Bowl Arcade in the UK and AH reader Kieran was kind enough to drop by and snap some pictures of the cabinet. As you can see, users make a video of themselves singing, just like the AI arcade, and it can be burned to a CD as well as a copy of the video sent to your cell phone. One thing we aren’t sure of at the moment is who it is that made this(and whether this is actually a location test or not), but when we find out, I’ll be sure to update the post.

For more pictures, including pics from inside the unit, check the post break.

Weekend reads: the appeal of arcades and building your own cabinet; Dragon Punch machine breakage; China gets Audition Online; Orbatak video

I’m going to take these recent Stinger feeds and combine them into one again, as a way to save a little time.

Newsfeed 853:

We’ll start off with a nice article about arcades found at Gamespy.com entitled “The Perfect Arcade, Part 1: Walking the Retro Road“. The writer gets into why arcades hold appeal and in particular the machines themselves which led him to build a cabinet of his own. Part 1 focuses on how he got to that point and beginning research on building the cabinet, some MAME talk and a little more. Part’s 2 and 3 will get into deeper details on his arcade experience so I look forward to reading that.

Newsfeed 854:

Drunk man becomes enraged while playing a Boxing machine (like Dragon Punch) at his local bar and ends up having to pay $3000 for the damages which occurred. I’m surprised that we don’t come across stories like this more often too be honest. Link

Not a Stinger Newsfeed – Long Entertainment releases Audition Online in China

While Kevin had sent me a link to a story on the national online Chinese tournament for Crazy Speed Arcade, I had mentioned that a part of the Crazy Speed coverage and I didn’t feel that it was worthwhile to give it another post all on it’s own. But I may as well mention it since we’ve got another piece of news coming out of China and from the same company who makes Crazy Speed Arcade. They have yet another title ready to go, a music game called Audition Online. It’s sort of like Konami’s Jubeat, sans the cool touch screens in favor of more traditional buttons.  I could swear that I have heard of an a game called Audition before but I think it was for PCs, so this is likely the arcade debut of the title.

More info on Audition can be found here.

Also not a Stinger Newsfeed

While wandering around Youtube I came across this video of a prototype arcade game from the 90’s that I’ve never heard of by American Laser Games. Called Orbatak, it used the 3DO for it’s hardware and trackballs as the control. I can see where an idea like this holds some appeal but from the look of the game in this video I can also see where it would have needed a little more to it to hold player’s long-term interest. A few more details on it can be found here, it joins the cancelled Beavis and Butthead and Die Alien Scum games in the never-released universe of 3DO-powered arcade titles.

IGS showcases “We Dancing Online” at GTI Asia Taipei Expo 2010

When you showcase one of your games at a show, what better way to get people interested in it than a good competition? IGS certainly felt so as they showed off their title, We Dancing Online. I could swear that I have seen and reported on this game before as something about it looks familiar but I can’t find the post where it was initially mentioned. Nevertheless, the game takes the dancing concept in the direction of using your hands instead of feet, while also changing how notes are hit from something like DDR (they come in sideways all on one path instead of floating up from the bottom of the screen). As the name implies, there are online features used in the game, through IGS’ Game Tower service which services other online games in the Chinese market as well. There is a downloadable version for the PC of ‘We Dancing Online’ here as well.

IGS showcases "We Dancing Online" at GTI Asia Taipei Expo 2010

When you showcase one of your games at a show, what better way to get people interested in it than a good competition? IGS certainly felt so as they showed off their title, We Dancing Online. I could swear that I have seen and reported on this game before as something about it looks familiar but I can’t find the post where it was initially mentioned. Nevertheless, the game takes the dancing concept in the direction of using your hands instead of feet, while also changing how notes are hit from something like DDR (they come in sideways all on one path instead of floating up from the bottom of the screen). As the name implies, there are online features used in the game, through IGS’ Game Tower service which services other online games in the Chinese market as well. There is a downloadable version for the PC of ‘We Dancing Online’ here as well.

DJ Max Technika 2 location tests in South Korea

Pentavision’s DJ Max Technika 2 was recently seen on a location test in South Korea and a couple of sites (Bemanistyle.com and Ruliweb.com) have the rundown on what the sequel will bring to the table this time around. As you might recall, the first DJ Max Technika was voted as the Game of the Year 2009 here at Arcade Heroes, showing that the game has a pretty strong fanbase out there.

Techinka 2 was a crowd pleaser at the loctest

DJ Max Technika 2 uses a new touch screen for enhanced multi-touch capabilities, a co-op mode for two people to play on the same screen, new buttons, and a plethora of new songs. The co-op mode looks like it could be a lot of fun and it should increase the earning potential of the game as well(you may recall that one surprise at last year’s IAAPA was a DJ Max Technika clone called Magic DJ which included two screens). As far as I know, PM Studios plans on bringing this to the US, although I haven’t heard any “official” announcements on it yet. Still, they are teaming up with Bemanistyle.com to sell the DJ Max Technika 2 Signature Collection set, which includes the sound track from the game along with some other goodies, so that seems like an endorsement for bringing the arcade version to the States.  We have no idea how much a DJMAXT2 will sell for but let’s hope that they start it at a price below where 1 started out at as I think that the high price is a big reason why the game hasn’t been seen in many locations. This has me wondering, would an upgrade kit be feasible here? The cabinets look similar enough but with a new touch screen that would make for a high priced kit, although I can imagine that for some who picked up the 1st DJ MAX, an upgrade kit would be a nicer option than buying another full cab.

Pentavision teasing DJ Max Technika 2

via

Pentavision is teasing their follow-up to their popular arcade music title DJ Max Technika with a new teaser site. The site doesn’t reveal anything about the game other than some colorful logos and a new name, DJ MAX Emotional Sense Technika 2 Crew Race. I certainly look forward to finding out more about this new game as the first one has made waves in coin-op music gaming (especially if you judge it by the number of clones that are produced using the DJ MAX concept) but as an operator I hope that the game will have a better price point than the first one did as $11k for a 1 player game is a bit difficult to swallow, no matter how cool the game is, at least for us smaller guys. More @ Ruliweb Also: teaser website

Also on another music game note, there are some videos of the new PIU Fiesta out there on Youtube. The game will be released next week when Amusement Expo hits and it seems to be sporting features that PIU fans are excited about.[Via Bemanistyle]