pop'n music [title pending] (AC)

Location test for a new pop'n music game has been announced for July 5-6 at Tokyo Leisure Land in Akihabara.

Notably, this is the first pop'n game to get a location test since UsaNeko. Welcome To Wonderland does not count.

Word from those in the loop is that these are entirely new cabinets being location tested rather than just a new installment of the series. Which makes sense, because GITADORA also hasn't received location tests until they prepared its ARENA MODEL to launch.

These are new designs for Mimi and Nyami though, so a new installment is also likely...

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Worried if this means end of life for SD cabinets and if it is that new cabinet better be 120hz w/ QoL, Hopefully pop'n does not get the DDR world treatment

You know what would be funny?

If this is the version that comes to Round1 in the US, and we see this game here (and this theoretical new cab) by, like, November. This is probably the last of the cornerstone Bemani games that doesn't have an official North American version that realistically could come (Nostalgia is dead, and no one wants Polaris Chord).

This is exactly what I’m hoping for. Awww, No love for Jubeat? Speaking of, I feel that if the pandemic didn’t kill off the upgraded Jubeat cabs that were shown at JAEPO, we would’ve gotten those.

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I know that in the early days, the bigger R1s did have those Jubeat cabs (they never came to the one I had access to); I wonder why they never moved forward with the new cabs, because they probably would've been the ones to come to the US.

I've noticed a pattern with Konami/R1, that they've been holding off making NA versions of their games until there's a cabinet upgrade (we didn't get *official* IIDX until Heroic Verse...which happened right as the world was shutting down), and then the pandemic held off valk cabs coming here for a year or two, but that gave us an official version with it, as well, and now we had the same thing happen with the Arena Model Gitadora cabs.

So, I strongly feel Pop'N is gonna be next. If they ever come back to Jubeat, I'm sure those would easily be in all R1 locations too, since they have the smallest footprint out of all the Bemani games.

1.2x-enlarged buttons caused a massive backlash so if they cannot stick to the original spec, there is no hope.

Details from the location test:
-Rating scale is unchanged
-43 inch, 120 Hz monitor
-Second monitor with a touch screen, for options and song searching
-New "JUDGE ADJUST" option to tweak timing
-Genres are back!
-Characters take up a huge amount of screen space
-This will be coming to America. Ikigai Arcade in Pittsburgh has confirmed that they've ordered two cabs already

And the song list:
BOW AND ARROW / 米津玄師
[CELESTIAL] Oort / BST "Yvya"
[AMANOGAWA RAVE] MILKY HIGHWAY / BST "PON" feat. NU-KO
[LOVELY MOTOWN 2] キミのそばに / BST "KE!JU" feat. ねんね
[MODERN JAPANESQUE] 幽世幻夜 / BST "TAN1CHU" feat. 妃那子
[TOWA] さらさ / BST "PON" (from jubeat)
[丼BASS] Deep tenDon Reflex / BST "Coyaan" (from DDR)
[NIKONIKO SUNFLOWER KISS] 魚氷に上り 耀よひて / あさき (from REFLEC BEAT)
[LAST ARTS] 刃図羅 / 猫叉Master vs HuΣeR (from IIDX)

Screenshots: https://x.com/ariesukobeya/status/1941301933043769529?t=6_fznVVy02ZK0E0dpDqi5A&s=19

Really curious about the holes on the bottom, and the giant pop-kun buttons (or maybe joysticks?) to the side.

But still, super excited about being able to finally play modern Pop'n soon! No more playing with broken cabs! XD

From what I saw in the video below, it looks like the two giant pop-kuns are used to toggle Hidden/Sudden.

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Friend of Round1 employee claims it's possibly coming in December, so we'll see if that holds true.

Eagerly looking forward to this new pop'n cab. I can't believe U-region pop'n music is actually real.

The local round1 has had an offline Fantasia cab forever; if we're getting U-region online cabs, I'll definitely get into playing it regularly.

If this comes out in the US outside of R1, I'd be so happy. I did hear Ikigai Arcade WILL be getting new versions of some Bemani games from Konami, which could be hinting at US releases being possible for other arcades.

My Round1 had that same cab for the longest time, until around 5 years ago. Only other Pop'N cab I've played was the Sengoku Retsuden cab that Retrovolt has, and they were both quirky in their own ways (either the buttons would stick or not register, or in the former's case, the CRT warped/got discolored after a while), so it's going to be super nice to have not only a brand new cab with much better buttons, but also have them be online with all the bells and whistles (I already noticed they added a retire button, which is going to be super nice to have in premium play)!

It was already confirmed from the Ikigai arcade that the new Pop'n music has a "US" version of the software so it confirms it's coming to the US. They ordered 2 of them and also 2 DDR World cabs, IIDX lightning cabs and 2 SDVX Valkyrie models, which also confirms that Konami is allowing arcades outside Round 1 to buy new Bemani cabs, so this is great news!

This cab rules, and is almost certainly getting rolled out to R1 within the next 12 months. The Pop-kun option buttons make me unbelievably happy.

Only 1 DDR cab for now, but yes
They confirmed that purchases for what konami is listing as "Small operators" is something they're doing now, and between konami staff and ikigai arcade these will just be a subset of their normal catalogue, but I can't really think of titles that would be large operator exclusive. Gitadora is in, so like is something like Dancearound out? lol

Dancearound is supposed to be Round1 exclusive. Unless that changes, I doubt Konami will let other arcades carry it.

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I think it's based on the arcade, not the game. Their existing arcade clients (Round 1, Dave and Busters) would be the "large" operators, but lomonix is right about DaR. We also won't officially be seeing DANCERUSH outside of R1 anytime soon for the same reason.

Dance ArounD is being quietly killed by Konami, along with DanceRush Stardom. Premium mode has been disabled as of June 29th for both games in Japan, and it's only a matter of time before service ends for both as well(Offline patch is unknown, but possible). Both had a good run, but they're being put out to pasture, so the likelihood of these games being included in the roll out is highly unlikely at this point.