eAMUSEMENT Global Service

Well then. How about we use petition sites to get our way (to expand the service), using whatever site necessary and post our signatures to Konami. It won't hurt us or anything, but a response will be more like it. Criticize me, if you want to about this.

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In a matter of a fact, Yes. We would love to have a petition on this.

Online petitions seem great. Anyone here want to start a link somewhere? If not, I'll do it.

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My pleasure. That would never work.

I got my latest issue of RePlay magazine today. It had a preview of the list of exhibitors to be at the next AAMA Amusement Expo in Las Vegas on the last week of March. No sign that Konami is showing up this year (unless they plan to use a distributor like Betson again).

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this is what moimoi (prim) posted on her FB page

if anyone cares, yes; they are 100% aware of whats going on

The thing is that BEMANI does not have nearly the support necessary from fans to justify expanding the infrastructure of the online service by nearly double its current size (assuming just the US). Servers and localization cost a lot of money, and the revenue KONAMI could potentially get from stuff like PASELI is unlikely to offset that cost. Even if you managed 5,000 signatures, that would be insignificant. You'd need somewhere in the ballpark of 50,000 to 200,000 signatures (which is a fat chance) to even begin to show that there's an opportunity for profit.

I'm not necessarily saying that it would work, I only said it was possible and that we should give it a shot. IMHO, I'm not nearly a big fan of DDR 2013/2014 as most likely a better percentage of the community, but it would great to see more of the new game outside of Asia. In fact, I'll be surprised once Konami actually does it.

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I think konami should've gone with raw thrills in the ddrx days. Maybe this time. I still see a decent number of people playing GH arcade around here. My only complaint about a new US DDR may be too many western songs catering to the Just Dance crowd. If it's like DDR2 on wii song list wise, I'll be satisfied.

Raw Thrills supplied some of the hardware for US X Cabs.

How about no.

Do note that the first paragraph of that page says the show isn't sold out yet. There's a chance Konami (or a distributor thereof) may still make an appearance and they just haven't announced them yet.

That's legit what DDR X US AC was, it was built from unused GH arcade parts and wood. I don't want RAW THRILLS getting anywhere close to DDR if they bring it back to the US. They are the reason why DDR has pretty much died in the US and why we are in this mess in the first place.

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whoops, didn't know.

Yeah Raw Thrills (which for those who do not know is pretty much what was the arcade side of the old game maker Midway) was heavily involved in many elements with the last few Konami games including DDR. Betson is the primary distributor for all Raw Thrill games and the official parts supplier.

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So, was Raw Thrills more to blame on DDRX than Betson? or were they both equally to blame?

Either way, with those two companies aside, would there be any other distributor who could handle DDR/IIDX/GD/etc.?

It's my understanding that Betson was no longer involved with Konami's arcade division with DDR X (or, if they were, they were only responsible for distribution/sales). Raw Thrills was responsible for constructing the cabinet.

In fairness, Raw Thrills was specifically instructed by Konami to reduce manufacturing costs for the US market. A JP DDR X cabinet cost approx. ¥2.000.000 (which, at the time, came to about $21000/13000£/€15000). Konami instructed them to cut the cost so it was more palatable to the US market, and they did. US DDR X cabinets were only $11000/6700£/€7800 comparitively. Unfortunately, they did this by cutting corners on everything from the sensors to the PC (which, instead of being an actual bemani PC, is literally a Dell Optiplex strapped to the back).

It still sucked, but they were a little hamstrung by cost.

Raw Thrills wouldn't kill the series twice...

I'M LYING

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Translating that to today's market, using the same cabinet, it would now come out to cost about $16500/£11100/€15500.

Still considerably expensive, but definitely thousands less, which then brings up the question, how much does it cost to make one of the new white cabinets, considering the stripped out the excess lights, and the lighting of the panels, and reduced the size of the speakers, it should be less, yet I can't find anything on the price of a white cabinet in japan.

And second, considering that many arcades have older machines mostly in the 573 era, with a few python 2 and x-era ones...though the x-era ones are probably beyond help at this rate. Why doesn't Konami offer hardware upgrades to the older machines in the US like they do in Japan? I've grown very doubtful about Konami saying they couldn't for the US market.

And as far as I've looked for the AAMA, I still don't see anything for Konami.

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Is this actually a thing though? I saw some non-HD machines running X3 on the day that 2013 launched in Japan as a white cabinet exclusive, but at the end of 2014, I saw no non-HD machines anywhere...

Basically it comes down to hardware support yindesu. Over time support for legacy hardware will become more expensive since parts for them will become more scarce. Thus you'll more than likely fine newer machines in Japan. IIDX is a good example once they started utilize hi-resolution machines.

As for the US, you will not find any of the newer white DDR machines because they're not releasing new arcade releases of DDR in the states. Typically a new iteration of a game may come with a newer set of hardware that supports it. It's going to be hard to obtain it directly from Konami unless you're going through a middle man.