Arcade Heroes Newsbytes: StarHorse Party, Amusement Expo 2025 Reveals, Sega Rhythm Game Updates & More
Welcome to Newsbytes, the series of posts at AH curates stories from across worlds of arcade and pinball. As previously mentioned, late February offered quite the major news blitz, and that still hasn’t been letting up as we approach a few major events. Here are a number of smaller pieces that have built up around them (StarHorse Party, AEI 2025, Sega rhythm game updates and more). Let’s dive in:
StarHorse Party
Let’s start off with something unusual with StarHorse Party. If you’ve been around on the arcade scene since the early 2000s you will likely remember Derby Owners Club, Sega’s pivotal card-based horse raising and racing simulator. Despite appearing in both the East and West, it marked a split between our tastes – where Japan could support a game like it and other subsequent titles using cards on a wider scale, Western operators were less keen on the attendant upkeep in maintaining its large cabinets, in spite of it being a success at Dave & Busters locations and Sega issuing a smaller, aptly-titled ‘Horseshoe’ setup (plus from personal experience, when I was selling games back around 2011~2016 I received inquiries about it from customers in North America with surprising frequency – a couple of times a quarter at least).
Over time Derby Owners fell away out East too, partly due to the fact it was superseded by a similar Sega series, StarHorse, which kept the horse racing in sprawling multi-seat enclosures but with betting instead of raising. That series has endured over there, getting evermore complex and even using luxurious recliner seats in more recent iterations. However… with this new, smaller spinoff StarHorse Party that has been recently announced, Sega look set to return to the simplified nature of those downsized Derby Owners Club cabinets for the West, which have gone nearly extinct now. As one can tell from the slightly cutesy graphics and logo in this trailer, that includes appealing more to younger players and families.
So far, this has only been on test over at a Round1 location in Japan late last month, where several sources like Game Room Ariesu have provided detailed reports and photos (like the one of its more compact cabinet below) – but will StarHorse Party ever go elsewhere? Probably not in this exact form, at least, even with the gameplay already simplified from where it was before. You never know though…
Amusement Expo 2025 Reveals
As Amusement Expo 2025 nears, plenty more pre-show news is coming through. We already got early word on the likes of Top Gun Maverick, Cyberpunk 2077: Turf Wars, and Maimai DX that will receive major launches there, but other companies have been announcing their lineups and new product debuts too. Chief among those is Alan-1, who made their AEI debut back in 2023, then made some waves there last year with the first appearance of Asteroids Recharged. They will be showcasing two new titles this time: the previously-revealed Missile Command Recharged and their collaboration with DSM Arcade, Soda Slam!.
Another newer name to look out for is Attractions & More, who got in touch to share that they are attending via a space with Birmingham Vending Company as well. In terms of what they will have, their website makes it clear they carry a lot of product by a Chinese company called iPlay. They haven’t been mentioned on AH all too often, but did get a namecheck in our AAA 2024 coverage for a distinctive approach with smaller monitors on this Jump For Treasure, which will be alongside a couple of Ultraman videmption games and other pieces (including a video boxer). We’ll have a more detailed post on them next week.
As briefly mentioned in our trade show post last month, UNIS have also started promoting their AEI presence, and over at RePlay Magazine, Team Play have got a lot of coverage this month with a cover feature for Candy Forge, the new redemption piece they are bringing to the show from TKM (who also make Bandai Namco’s Crab Rush and Lolly Crush, seen here). Candy Forge was at IAAPA in the form of Magic Factory, but TMP had mentioned that they were probably going to retheme it. Their Pixel Pix photobooth was also on the cover of RePlay for last AEI, but hopefully this year things go better for the company as a transport disaster prevented them from having a booth last year.
There will be a full preview up for each company closer to the show, so hang tight for that. Also note that I will be working to do a special online preview with exA-Arcadia soon to detail their slate of imminent releases, as they are no longer attending the show. They still have a whole host of new games to show off to the world, although some of their upcoming titles (including a new game with a big anime IP) may yet be pushed back for a reveal at EVO Japan 2025 in May instead.
Sega Rhythm Game Updates
The news for Sega’s rhythm games doesn’t end with Maimai DX’s release in the US at long last; over in their homeland, there has been a ton of recent activity surrounding them and the finals of the latest King of Performai championships, where Japanese players compete on Maimai, Chunithm and Ongeki, as well as others from across Asia on the international versions that exist for the former two. These had their 6th edition at the end of February, where Sega went all out this year, choosing a public venue in Shibuya for the finals instead of their headquarters for the first time. They made plenty of major game announcements too – including the next update for Maimai DX in Japan, scheduled to go live on the 13th.
And even bigger than that seems to be the return of the aforementioned Ongeki to prominence. For a quick refresher on this one it is the newest of the three games, having originally launched in 2018 and only officially in Japan so far. Its character-led content, use of cards and shooting game fusion gameplay apparently earnt it some fans, but after its Bright Memory version in 2022 it stopped getting yearly updates, aside from the occasional song add. That’s now changing though with Ongeki Re:Fresh, coming out at the end of March. Could Chunithm and this go out West following Maimai too? Who knows…
Bunny Bomber Blast Is Now Available
Speaking of Japan, exA-Arcadia has just released their next retro-style game release to arcades, Bunny Bomber Blast. By indie developers Hiulit’s Game Studio, this title is a lot like Dig Dug meets Bomberman; it was on test recently in Japan and today is now available to purchase through your standard exA-Arcadia dealers. There’s no trailer up for it yet, but here’s some earlier footage of the game as played at IAAPA 2024. Note that the issues I had with the controls is said to have been corrected, which was the only complaint I had with it. This is also a “value” purchase, coming in under $900.
Stern Files King Kong Trademark
The pinball rumor mill keeps on turning as always, sometimes turning up hard results and sometimes not. One way to give them more validation has always been to keep an eye on new trademark registrations, and this month we have news of an even more conclusive example than CBS refiling Twilight Zone’s of late. Knapp Arcade has spotted that Stern themselves have filed for two new trademarks in quick succession recently – one being King Kong, the other ‘Myth of Terror Island’. That latter one is likely the subtitle, assuming it’s related… either way, it looks like Stern are definitely making a new pinball take on the giant ape, which up to now had only been done by Data East in 1990 with this rare piece.
David Fix Leaves American Pinball
This is a little bit of a surprise to me, however, I don’t stay as up-to-date on the daily operations for pinball makers as I might on video game manufacturers. I spoke with David at IAAPA 2024 and he was very enthusiastic about AP’s future, but as Pinballnews points out, there have been some other departures from the company since that show (and they also won’t be at Amusement Expo…). Generally speaking, when you have a lot of people leaving or getting laid off at the same time, sales aren’t that great.
That said, it does sound like they’ll get game #7 (which I’ve heard through the rumor mill is Cuphead, but that’s the internet saying that and not Mr. Fix – he didn’t slip what their next game was when I spoke with him, he just sounded excited about whatever it was) out the door. Of course, if sales are low from their other games, then this could be one of those make-or-break product releases for the whole company.
February Arcade Releases
Find all of last month’s US arcade releases below (there were none in pinball, oddly). We weren’t initially sure on exactly when UNIS’ Monster Kart here released at first, but what is here has been confirmed to be accurate. Which of these games appeals to you the most?
Headlines
Raw Thrills Start To Tease Top Gun Maverick + LAI Games Tease Cyberpunk 2077: Turf Wars – We had the first word on them of course, but expect full reveals of these two big titles very soon…
More Details On Magi Blast, Bandai Namco’s New Original Magic Shooter On Test Since Last Week – the AH YouTube channel also has a video on it now. Hopefully this one goes further
Bandai Namco Also Testing Penda Beats Again, Now In Osaka At Round1 Sennichimae
Two Years On From Reveal, The Idolm@ster Tours Is Releasing On March 26th
The Year-Long 45th Anniversary Celebrations For Pac-Man Have Now Kicked Off
Help Build The Collection Of Online Capcom CPS1 Manuals
Square Enix’s Starwing Paradox Is Getting An Anime Movie, “AS ONE”, This Summer
The Seven Unused Fighting Vipers Cabinets On Facebook Went Viral In Arcade Circles
Razor Ramon Filming for WrestleMania: The Arcade Game, Via Insert Coin Documentary
Sega APM3 Gets A New ‘Ryukyu’ Solitare Poker Game Sequel From Success
Konami Updates Their Power Pros Medal Game To Include Real Baseball Players
Former Namco Producer And New Graduates Make An AI-Based Crane Game
ICE’s Neon Bowling Has Started Shipping + Gets A New Video Promo
WIK Amusement Trails MATRIX Air Hockey + NEO Air Hockey
High-Res Scans Of The Play Meter Magazine 1990 Directory
DOF Robotics Reveals New Game For Their Defender Simulator
Grab The Black Knight Pinball Music On Vinyl
[Home Headlines]
Big Buck Hunter Ultimate Trophy Announced For Switch/PS5/Xbox – Some thought there would be more done for the series in arcades to celebrate its 25th anniversary, but it looks like this console version of Reloaded is it
Sonic Racing CrossWorlds Holds Network Test, 20+ Minutes Of Footage – Especially with the confirmation that some of the Initial D and Maimai guys are helping out on it, that could make for an awesome arcade version…
Arcade Archives Celebrates Eight Years Of Arcade Games Coming Home
Following Jitsu Squad, Samurai Pizza Cats Get A New 2D Action RPG
Nintendo Switch 2s Have Already Hit The Chinese Black Market
Saturn Memories Compiles Big List Of Saturn-Related Games
Another Business Analyst Predicts A $100 Price Tag For GTA6
Insomniac Games Is Working To Restore Their VR Games To The Meta Store
The Atari Jaguar Is Getting An Enhancement Of The Atari ST/Commodore Amiga Shmup, Wings Of Death
That’s all for now on this Newsbytes. Which of the latest arcade news (e.g. StarHorse Party) interested you most this time?
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