e-Amusement

Was e-Amusement ever implemented in the US outside of BZN? If so, then where?

Nope and probably don't plan on it.

---

Wasn't there a machine at a Konami office in California with e-Amuse enabled?

Yes. This machine and the Brunswick machine were the ONLY TWO machines in ALL of the US to have E-amuse...

...so yeah

---

So is KonamiBetson just lazy?

They're offering it, nobody wants it.

And I can see why... $50 a month... and KonamiBetson expects them to get it for X (and hopefully X2)?

I wonder if Konami could make it $50 a year, like XBL, and make enough money to support it.

Not to mention the up-front cost of the specialist router, too.

---

e-Amusement

Timeline

- e-Amusement was first brought to the states by Ryan Monahan who worked for Brunswick.
- Brunswick partnered with Konami through Ryan and brought location tests and e-Amuse to the Brunswick Zone in Naperville, IL.
- Brunswick was originally planning on rolling out e-Amuse service to more of its arcades, but this fell through and Brunswick no longer partnered with Konami .
- Naoki Okada from Konami updated Bemanistyle saying Konami is still very interested in bringing e-Amuse to America, but have not yet found another partner.

Dependency

- Focusing on DDR, the game is continuing to depend itself entirely on being online 24/7.
- Konami developers design the game this way because they are only thinking about Asia where the service has become a vital role in earning money for them and the arcade.
- e-Amusement is the only service Konami could make money with because its already well established. Any other service would require development time and money which they could risk not making back if something new was to be made for other regions.

Problems

- Konami does not have the resources to provide service and support for areas outside of Asia.
- With the high cost of e-Amuse is it not the best solution for areas outside of Asia.
- Other cheaper online/offline services exist in America, but are not as robust and complex as the e-Amuse service.
- Konami could create a better solution for regions outside of the e-Amuse service, but it would require more development time and money.
- The US and EU are focusing on cutting costs and developing a new service for these areas would only push the costs higher.

Thoughts

Although our experience with any new DDR in arcades will be crippled, I am still more focused on Konami creating the highest quality and lowest costing machine as possible. They need to have a successful earning DDR game before anything else can be focused on. The pad’s sensors are being redesigned with help from the Japanese team, so things are looking to be better than the X release. We just need to wait for location tests and provide as much feedback as possible without only focusing on the negatives.

Personally I'm not really fussed about the lack of e-Amuse. However, I would like to see an alternative with USBs. PIU showed that it could be done properly (and is [over here at least] availible much, much cheaper than any DDR), so I don't see why it can't be done on this.

---

They'll blame it on development costs.

Maybe if the parnetship of e-AMUSE is maded by an region-basis?
US-West, US-Center, US-East
and outside US in a per country based?
-
here we CAN do that, I will tell the reasons:

1. ALL THE DDR ARCADE CABINETS ARE FROM THE SAME OPERATOR.
2. Exist only 1 AC operator here (that can be helpful in cost reduction in a massive operation by 1 AC operator)
3. Altough there exists SN 2 and X here (and X2, once we get it), we can only use e-AMUSE on X2, because service for X has ended too (MAX code = e-AMUSE service ends, except for updates)
-

1. If KDE provides us COSSY, for Card Game events (and Card Game dept. is really tiny), why not? The problem is not the system, its the partnership.
2. e-AMUSE costs should be adjusted for the North American, South American and European Market (just a little). Here we can pay about 50 US Dollars to a wonderful service called e-AMUSEMENT. If we pay about 100 US Dollars per 12MB internet service?
3. The other services has limited coverage and cant be exported outside US and Canada, and KDE thinks more globally.
4. Develop a new system or a "reduced" version of e-AMUSE its really expensive.
5. Agree... US and EU offices are focusing on reducing costs. Develop something parallel to e-AMUSE it will be push the costs highter.
--
Someone has the email from Mr. Okada? I haven't find on Global site and we need to talk with KDE directly, not betson, not raw thrills, no electrocoin.

---

e-Amuse will never happen and if it no one will buy it if it does come out. Arcades are near extinction outside the Asia/Japan area. It's not that the US arcades don't want it, they can't afford it.

---

There's no value in it. To cover the additional costs, the addition of E-Amuse would have to generate something like 100 extra credits per month, from a very small group of dedicated players and it would have to do that over an extended period of time.

This is contrary to the fact that most of the large arcades (Trocadero, Namco Station) don't like the extra wear and tear that these players put on the machine. They'd rather the machines were played entirely by novice players, who come along, fail the second song, and leave the machine for 2 more novice players to come along and try. E-Amuse just isn't appealing, because it encourages the same players to crowd around the machine all day, scaring off potential new users.

Actually Hollywood Park in Illinois has e-amuse running. Whenever you try to swipe your card the game will try to load data and will just give you an error though.

This is what Konami and Betson have to do to really get things rolling...
1. Make e-amuse mandatory for the next release. This may hurt sales, but honestly its going to be hurting the arcades more that don't buy it.
2. Cut the costs. All though $50.00 a month is not bad at all for a service like e-amuse, they need to find a way to lower that cost. They don't seem to see that arcades are almost extinct in NA and $50.00 a month is just too much for a normal arcade. Maybe make it like $100.00 a year and like $100.00 for the router.
3. Actually show the benefits of having e-Amuse. What if I told you there was this thing that is really awesome thing that costs extra but I can't say what it does? This is what is going on with marketing e-amuse. There is nothing that really states what it does, and what benefits your arcade and players will receive.

We are going to have to see what happens with DDR X2, but I cant really see e-amuse coming again unless they really put fourth the effort to want arcades to have it.

---

yeahehehehehe not gonna happen. this will kill sales.
not in a million years. every other point is fair enough but starting with this one will probably make others stop reading the post here.

---

They did, in ATEI 2008:

- with all the features that we aren't getting because of the lack of e-Amuse its definitely something that should be addressed. code based unlocks don't keep people putting in as much money as a lot of the e-amuse unlock features would.

- finding the partnership is the difficult part. there's an infinite amount of possibilities on what they could do once they have the partnership so its not really worth thinking up new ones.

- prices will not chance just for our market with e-Amuse. the cost to run, manage and make money from the service is 50$ anything different and there's no point in having the system for Konami.

i don't really like what Tyma is focusing on. wither it could be true or not, we should be focusing on getting these ops to understand that having this service with all the features it posses can benefit earnings than without it. mentioning shit like this doesn't help.

Omega read my post.. they are trying to reduce costs making it mandatory would not make any sense. if they reduce the cost by that much there would be no benefits for Konami to run the service. they could promote the service more, but like i said in the first post they need to focus on creating the highest quality and lowest costing machine as possible.

there's not really much else than can be said after my original post. there is no point in coming up with your own ideas at this point because there is so many options Konami could potentially take. i still think as players we need to support the idea of e-amuse regardless of the logistics.

something i would like to see people discuss is what options/features with e-Amuse could be made offline. e-Amuse is so heavily relied on that they are developing many features that could easily be done with an offline system such as player data and enjoy levels. it may be that it is only tied to one machine, but many of the players only have one or two local machines that they play on in their area.

i'm not too sure why personal scores and enjoy levels need the whole e-amusement service to be honest. they unlock things already on the machine right?
so my question is, why can't e-amusement cards simply be made to store personal offline data like enjoy levels and such, without being connected to a server? this way you get your personalised experience and can unlock a few things every now and then, without the need for the machine to be online.

i feel like i may have asked this question before, but i can't remember the answer if i have.

---

e-s-g exactly my thinking. the reason it doesn't work this way is just because its not developed to. its made to rely on being online and storing player data on a central server some where. its totally possible offline though.