How popular is DDR these days.. REALLY.. in the US, the UK, Japan..

Well, I've read questions like this for several years already and I usually reply with the very same text. But this time...

I think that the popularity of DDR really went down a bit (or is becoming invisible). Even in countries like The Netherlands, Belgium and France the popularity is starting to get lost somewhere between ITG and ITG with custom songs from who knows what server. These countries used to be very pro-DDR. DDR arcades were common. No people are slowly converging to ITG even though there's like one in France which is private, one in Belgium which is at a really bad place and well many in the Netherlands. But still play/played SN and EX and ITG was kind of something to spice things up. From my point of view from what I read and see people are becoming crazy with different games (ITG, PIU Pro and PIU in some cases). DDR never managed to get to my country...so the scene is pretty much dead here anyway. But it seems that DDR stays pretty much popular in Russia (along with PIU) and Polish people are trying their best to keep DDR alive too even though they have their own ways to do it. (and that does not mean getting new DDR cabs).

Also after playing on both Japanese and European version of DDRX I can't really see any future of "hardcore" DDR playing. KONAMI is targeting casual players and not people like us. not to mention that the DDR charts can't really satisfy us sometimes. DDRX European version is pretty much unplayable if you are not really good at syncing with it and playing completely off. The pads are really the worst things I've ever seen in my life. I mean even newer TX pads seems better! And I've seen some sensors die already....o_O I wonder if we (europe) get the patch for the game or not. The songlist in DDRX is really poor and well...all those returning songs? is it worth a new mix? I mean we could stick to SN. X does not really give us anything new except Screen Filtering and higher speed mod....

I can imagine the European DDR scene is not thriving especially with KONAMI's treatment of the region and the law that prevented SuperNOVA2 from reaching there, resulting in a long gap between SuperNOVA and X, and then X finally hits and is virtually unplayable, and the CS scene in Europe is just a sorry affair. Though SuperNOVA2 AC was not KONAMI's fault, they really fumbled everything else during that time frame in Europe.

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Geez is Betson fault for some horrible cabs, DDR X Jap dedicabs seems to be good, but itself, honestly some of the US. licenses they add to DDR X are even worse than the ones for DDR SN2, and seems Konami for each new DDR is being worse (starting at SN1) how will be DDR Multi-Platform? total disaster?, and imagine if after this game they make an arcade of another new DDR with the help of version, it will be so horrible, DDR is losing dancers fastly because Konami trying to experiment new designs and all that, that make the game bad, is like: Why Konami? why??... damn, from MAX to Extreme they did an awesome job, nice pads and I love the Extreme theme and songlist, is just awesome!, SN is ok, SN2 is ok (those 2 not as good as MAX, MAX 2 and Extreme) but X, come on Konami, I know you can do something better, the only good songs that make this DDR a bit better are really few, like 10% only... also why those weird boss songs? trigger.. etc, why?! why not keep the original tradition of MAX as boss songs and PARANOiAs and Trip Machines ? they should have used Max to the Maxxiumxx (or something like the name, sorry don't remember it correctly), so as I said, this is like Microsoft... they make XP, really good OS, and for example Konami makes DDR Extreme, really good game, then they make Vista, pretty bad, is like they make X!, but Microsoft will make 7 and supposly it will be really good, if Konami continues like that I guess that won't happen, this game is losing dancers, they are converting to groovers or pumpers, so I hope if Konami makes new AC and CS game, please that it can be as the old games... like MAX to Extreme, I will be happy it that happens.

Sorry guys if I took your time reading all this lol

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lol
I'll post like I've never posted in this thread. Here goes:

Title: How popular is DDR these days?
My response: So popular that Disney felt like buying 6 GH cabs. So popular that 1/2 the theaters I go to have immediately purchased other machines that aren't DDR (cough GH). So popular that the only people it attracts from what I've seen in theaters have been little girls who play by stomping on the mat.