Building on their successful ‘Super Bishi Bashi Championship’ mini-game format the company has started testing ’Gashaaan’ (Proprietary Hardware). The 4-player ball shooting game has the player shooting items at a large screen building on the big shooting experiences cabinets such as ‘Crypt Killer’ and more recently ‘WarTran’, the big presentation of the mini-game experience offers a fun experience, that could work well internationally (if ever considered).

Already seen at AOU, the completed version of ‘Baseball Heroes’ (Proprietary Hardware) has started to build momentum in the Asian market - where baseball is still king. The card based video amusement Satellite Terminal (ST) product has four-player terminals supported by a central dispensing and monitoring system. The terminals are exact replicas of the SEGA WCCF style system - sparking interest of possible licensing of the camera-based encoded card reader, which is used to read the players cards, and integrate them into the action. The game along with the player cards also uses an e-AMUSEMENT Pass IC Card that combines a QRCode - the game heavily supported by the Konami exclusive tournament infrastructure. It is not known if Konami has licensed the technology to Konami, as it is still not known if Banpresto licensed the hardware for their ‘GunDam Card Builder’ (Naomi GD-ROM) system.

Recently launched and deployed into Japanese venues ‘Pop’n Music 13’ (Proprietary Hardware) has become victim of its own success with TSR learning from sources inside the operation that a rush software upgrade had to be deployed into the market addressing a number of bugs found in the online software support and e-AMSUEMENT issues. The new version of the game having the ‘JAD’ logo in the top corner so players know that they are playing on an updated system. The company continues its music genre domination with the launch of ‘BeatMania II DX 13: Distorted’ (Proprietary Hardware) that takes the BeMania concept to an older audience and hoping to distinguish the concept form the Taiwanese competitors.

The big development from Konami’s new stable is ‘Precious Party’ (Proprietary Hardware) that sees the six-terminal ST game surrounding a large display. The multiple games experience shared between the players using simple controls, reminiscent of touchscreen terminal gaming, but in this case the game allows betting between the terminals with jackpots, and accumulated prize, all based on the Medal game structure particular to the top floor of the common Japanese facility. The game embraces the e-AMUSEMENT infrastructure as do all Konami games, but this marks the first big build Medal game from the company to do so and may point more to a across the board adoption of the technology through the Konami Gaming divisions.

Breaking Stinger News - SEGA news continued to flow from all of the international divisions, but in the home market, beyond the Private Show, the Japanese giant flexed its muscles concerning any encroachment of what they see is their territory.

As revealed as far back as the JAMMA show coverage (Stinger #418), the ‘Mushi-King’ Card Game sector had been under attack from similar systems. Banpresto’s system, with their up scalable DATACARDDASS feature, has started to penetrate the market, but it was the Taito entry first with their ZOIDS based Card Game that started alarm bells ringing for SEGA.

SEGA filed on the 28th of October 2005, an injunction at Tokyo District Court against the Taito game ‘DinoKing’ (Proprietary Hardware). The suit claiming that the ‘Muski-King’ (Naomi GD-ROM) patent -371212nd2 awarded to SEGA was being infringed. This comes as SEGA has attempted at various exhibitions internationally to force exhibitors not to present the Taito product - most recently seen at Previoew’06.

SEGA has been living off of the success of the Muski-King release, which has seen staggering Asian success but failed international penetration - the game’s beetle fighting, rock-paper-scissors system not suited to a much more diverse audience. The need for a more familiar character license was needed, and it became obvious that a dinosaur styling would prove beneficial; SEGA released in 2005 ‘DinosaurKing’ (Naomi GD-ROM) - known as ‘Kyoryu-King’ in the home market.

But in Korea the developer and manufacturer D-GATE had released their own system based on the Card Game format. DinoKing offered all the elements needed for more popular success to the concept and a strong dinosaur combat element supported by the collectable cards. Having launched the system in Q2 2005, Taito decided to license the game and sell it through their distribution operation and by Q3 2005 had installed a few hundred machines in Japanese amusement venues.

The infuriated SEGA started the legal suit against Taito regarding DinoKing in October after applied pressure at JAMMA failed to interrupt the installation of the game. An example of the growing upturn in the Japanese amusement scene that a legal battle can break out to try and stop sales of a machine, a factor that had not been seen since the mid-90’s legal row by Konami over the BeMania infringements. The subtleties of this legal battle (SEGA only going for Taito, avoiding Tomy or Banpresto) were not lost on industry observers.

The ramification of the legal battle between SEGA and Taito (indirectly D-GATE) could pull in another party as a third dinosaur Card Game moved from the shadows. As revealed in the Stinger during its AMOA’05 exhibition coverage, LAI Games had developed ‘Dino Duel’ (Proprietary Hardware), which could find itself under SEGA scrutiny (TSR would also like to correct previous coverage that attributed this to any links to the Taito / D-GATE Dino King game). The Australian based amusement developer famous for their ‘Light House’ redemption system entering the dinosaur Card Game field and brings to three products of this kind for different manufacturers. Though great minds think alike, the fist fight over who will dominate what could be a international hit to rival the penetration of the beetle fighting original will be intense - Yet again the industry feeds legal pockets rather than revenue!

The importance of the Card Game genre to open-up a new audience and revenue stream was proven with the leaking of statistics surround the less well-known girl game based on the MushiKing concept. Translating as ‘Love and Berry’ (Naomi GD-ROM), the game uses the exact same cabinet and hardware, but rather than battling beetles or dinosaurs, SEGA have created a game aimed squarely at the female players (of the kindergarten and primary schools age band). The game has the girl players collecting cards that help dress two cute witch character (the reason for the game’s name). The over 150 cards are used both in the dressing and the dancing features of the cute witch characters who compete for points, the superior dresser and dancer winning.

Recent information has revealed the game achieving stupendous success with its target audience with the machine having cues form outside it to be played, the collecting of the various magic cards causing a shortage. The game builds off of the Pokemon panic and also offers a card-collecting craze for the girl market, seen to have been recently neglected by card game brands. The only other predominately female centric amusement product (beyond the themed UFO cranes) is the Namco ‘The Idol M@ster’ (System 246), which has players build a female music star and chart her career.

SEGA does have international plans for the female experience, according to news at IAAPA where “Love and Berry” was displayed in Japanese version with promises of an English language version to come at an unknown date. It is obvious that they will fight to the death to protect their genre, having already created a branded toy range and amusement attraction based on their MushiKing brand alone.

Breaking Stinger News - The danger that the technical specifications of the proposed Next-Generation console or ‘Digital Entertainment Systems’ as the new systems want to be seen as, may be raised too high to actually be perceived by the general gaming scene. It has been a common trait of console manufactures (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft), that the claims and boasts of the performance of their systems are always highly inflated - but the coming new battle has seen some of the most over-the-top promises that could act as more of a deterrent than a benefit to strongly needed 2006 sales.

The situation has come to a head with the Sony Playstation 3 - in recent press announcement and presentations Sony executives revealed that their new machine, aiming for a 2006 Q4 launch, will have the ability to present graphics at an unheard of 120 frames per second display rate (known by Sony as ‘Super High Density’, rendered at over 2,000 pixels). This ‘better than film’ presentation standard is superior to that capable of being displayed on the current range of television and display systems in the market, with only the latest hi-definition television (HDTV) systems planned for Christmas’05 able to do justice to the systems display.

The Nintendo and Microsoft systems have all announced standard performance of 60 frames per second display rates, though the XB360 is targeting the HDTV opportunities, hoping its quality of imagery will encourage secondary spend on new television systems - all part of the move towards creating a ‘Life Style System’ that supplies all the home media requirements, the gaming element a poor second. In a recent presentation Microsoft founder and tycoon - Bill Gates - stated that the living room was the new battleground for consumer spending with CD, DVD and CCD being dead or dying and that content now hardware was the direction of the future market - Life Style Systems would retain their content in trillion bit capacity solid state memory.

That the technical possibilities of the game systems are beating claims of actual playability resurrects painful memories of the 1983-84 console game crash. After a period of success, then Next Generation systems proposed phenomenal performance, much of which would not be available to players who did not upgrade their televisions (at that time the move from black and white home systems, and better performance second color televisions was gradual). Systems such as the Coleco ‘ADAM computer system’, Mattel ‘Aquarian’, and Magnavox ‘Odyssey 2’ promised great things - but a apathy of re-releases, poor real performance and hardware difficulties caused a snowball effect that wiped out the emerging market.

Retailers now looking a recession in the face are less than happy that profitable consumer game sales could be decimated by new ‘Next-Gen’ hardware proposals, with a lose-lose possibility, both detracting gamers to the older systems with content drying up in development support of the new systems that fail to deliver the needed next-new-thing.

One of the largest retail operations (Wal-Mart) has already charted technical difficulties with the ‘Next-Gen’ systems, with the front runner (Microsoft XB360) for release Q4 2005, has been demonstrated in stores in special kiosks. However, while on display the systems unique wireless joypad has interfered with in store systems, the electronic noise seen as significant and resulted in the systems being shut-down. The concerns for the actual gamer interfaces for these systems have started the rustle of concern, with the Nintendo Revolution ‘Next-Gen’ system proposing a unique two handed controller, and the Sony PS3 still illustrating an unusual ‘U’ shaped design to attract non-gamers.

The hardware concerns from retailers have been heightened with a increased investment by the manufacturers to remove the retail chain from their sales forecast with the proposal that these broadband enabled games systems looking to downloaded game contact (rather than store-brought) as the main way to distribute games. Nintendo’s revelation of a 2006 Q2 launch of their machine was followed by confirmation of a ‘global’ launch (rather than the staggered Asian, North America, Europe - release pattern). This proposal marks the beginning of the removal of the delay of the retail network to product release as content will turn predominately to downloaded game sales (digital distribution).

Consumer industry observers speculate that if the X360 has a lackluster launch in November 2005, this will snowball into a poor Nintendo and then Sony launch in 2006. Already a vast sway of software publishers have been acquired or closed down in recent months, with a speculated $30million needed spend to launch a ‘Next-Gen’ game title with staffing levels of 200+. This is unachievable for the majority of the market and could mean that by 2006 a decimated developing system, compounded by players and retailer apathy and erosion by spend on mobile gaming and media decks (Gameboy Advance and Micro, PSP, Video iPod, MP3 and Mobile phone) could mark a downfall that would cripple the consumer game (console) sector.