DDR X2 (AC) (International)

So, North America/Europe:

We have now confirmed, in each of SoCal, Illinois, and Florida separately, that Betson's sensors suck. We've all had sensors die or start vibrate-triggering after about a month.

Can those of you in the north Atlantic confirm or deny your experiences with Betson's X2 being a piece of shit?

(Round1's cab is so broken we still can't get unlocks, I'm sure everyone's gotten tired of hearing about our exclusive WinDEU Hates You mode. Certain techs at Round1 sure as hell are tired of hearing about it.)

When I played on the Syracuse, NY X2, I didn't notice anything too wrong with it. The 1P left stuck on for a few seconds once while I was there, but that didn't repeat itself.

Of course, I seem to score just fine on machines known to give pad misses out like candy, so your results may vary

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it's not possible to score when the sensor is dead

I used to always get a great on smooooch at a certain crossover from left to right because of this.

I'm keeping my eyes peeled but so far, no Nor Cal sightings. And at this point, I don't think the Golflands (Milpitas, Sunnyvale, San Jose Emerald Hill, Castro Valley etc.) are too interested in getting a new cab.

Maybe we'll be lucky in a year and a half and get X3 instead.

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The Golflands have 20/20 foresight. If I was an arcade manager, I'd be pissed I got suckered into buying a shitty X2 Betson cab.

Depending on how much sensors cost, and accounting for the fact that Round1's shit cab is actually driving both casuals and average players away from making return visits to Round1, I'm willing to bet that at the end of the day, a Japanese X2 cab will be cheaper after purchase+maintenance than a Betson cab after purchase+maintenance.

The only thing the Golflands haven't gotten is Pump. Pretty sure Round1 mkes more money from Pump than DDR, and that was back when there were only 2 Pump cabs to 2 DDR cabs. (It's 3 to 2 now.)

I love how DDR was more popular when it was imported.

That's a fallacy.

The reason DDR is unpopular (at Round1) now is because the game is unplayable. The end.

For the past 4-5 Sundays, I was the only person who ever pumped credits into that machine too. Everyone else avoided it like the plague, and this was when the pads' sensors were actually good. They started sticking again last week.

(and the only reason I pumped the machine was because I was Risky Mode grinding out high scores. with sticky pads I'm not doing that anymore, and I'm also not going to be in SoCal for summer recess, so I wonder just who is going to put money into that crap cab for the next 4 months lol.)

Yeah, you can see that at Latitude 30 now as the DDR isn't at the exact front of the arcade anymore. They turned it to face the wall and put a prize grabber in front of it. The sensors are just that bad...

Actually, the machine was moved as people in the restaurant were complaining about the volume of the game and rather than turn the game down and make it harder to hear again, they simply shifted it so people dining didn't complain anymore. Granted that doesn't pardon the shit sensors issue one bit but I'm holding hope that once Priest gets the ITG sensors this week (supposedly shipped today) he can make his idea for a mod work.

I still think it's crap he has to go through such extreme measures to get this thing running well again but that's Betson for you.

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After a while classic cabinets with Japanese DDR X kits installed started appearing on the American eBay. Hopefully that will happen with DDR X2 after a while. The problem now with DDR is that unless the machine is connected to eAmuse constantly, some songs are simply going to be unplayable outside of Japan.

I spoke with an arcade owner in Woodland California where I'm living now about getting an Asian kit for DDR X or X2 and he's considering it. It feels good to play EXTREMEs again but after spending four months with X2 it looks... so... old...

I think the likely outcome is that the E-amuse exclusive songs will appear on the next AC game, as part of the DDR X2 folder, in the same way the CS songs used to. Everyone will still get the songs, but E-Amuse players will get the added incentive of being able to play them first.

Is it a fair compromise to be a mix behind in exchange for working hardware? It shouldn't have to be like this but that's the option they're leaving arcades outside of Asia unfortunately. They've lost the trust of so many venues over the last couple of years. The few that still want to buy machines at least have AN option to work with.

It's one thing that the releases haven't been on a global scale as of late. It's another thing that they've outsourced development of foreign cabs starting DDR SN to another company who handed it to a firm with cheapness in mind (aka shitty pads). But now we are once again experiencing "Some machines have songs others don't." (in a timed-fashion except for the Append Festival).

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That's the sad thing. X2 is so close to "working hardware". All they need to do is spend more money building the sensors... and go to Round1 and fix that fucking cab.

In the interest of releasing the machine as soon as possible they probably didn't have longevity testing, which is sad because we find ourselves in this situation. Really a shame, so close, but unfortunately still not there. I really want KONAMI to do well and continue to push the AC games internationally, but I wonder how many arcades are willing to put up with this for a third round?

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They definately neglected to consider how "hardcore players" play the game, compared to how "casual players" play the game, and how much of a toll bar-raping takes on the machine.

That isn't something you can really test, though, so it's a miracle that there are still original Japanese cabinets that are completely functional, and in better condition than most Betson cabinets.

Sensors are arguably the most important pieces in the machine. That's like someone shipping a computer that won't boot because of bad memory. It's so close to being a working computer... no, for all intents and purposes it's a broken computer until every component works as advertised and reasonably expected to (And for at least as long as it takes to wear out a pair of socks).

If only they would send out working memory to replace the defective memory for the people who shelled out five figures for those computers...


I can think of one way to test that...

[14:02:41] しお: I've talked to Yosaku (Valkyrie Dimension stepmaker) today
[14:03:08] しお: and I asked what's up with that chart
[14:03:12] しお: he said
[14:03:53] しお: actually
[14:04:17] しお: Konami throwed very first chart back he submitted because it's too hard
[14:05:23] しお: but when Yosaku himself played his chart on arcade machine
[14:06:34] しお: it turned out to be that Konami had modified his chart way harder than original
[14:07:18] しお: After they said it's too hard!

^Sta Kousin, leader of the Foonmix project

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Mean. Very mean.

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I want to see the "Original" Stepchart.