ROBO CATCHER!
Today we visited the AM show in Makuhari Messe and we spotted the Robo Catcher: a Ufo Catcher (claw vending machine or toy crane machine) that features a Robo One class robot (Kondo KHR) . It will be distributed in Japanese videogame centers from november. (Thanks to our shitty camera we used a photo from Robowatch). A prototype version of this ufo catcher has been posted back in february.
Update: a YouTube video of Robo Catcher.
ETERNAL WHEEL: new SquareEnix Arcade
Another new arcade game from Taito (owned by Square Enix since 2005) is Eternal Wheel (or "The wheel of Eternity"): a satellite card game developed by Square Enix. Satellite arcade games with touch sesitive panels are really popular in japanese game arcades (one example is Derby Owners Club) but the size and the cost of these machines limited the distribution to Japan (and sometimes Asian game centers). One of the most famous Satellite platform is Sega Chihiro. Eternal Wheel has been programmed on NESYS: a new PC-based Taito Type-X Arcade Board which is a network-connected arcade machine that features a touch-sensitive panel. I think this release will stop the rumors about Square Enix working on a new hardware console that started spreading last year.
Akihiko Yoshida and Amano Yoshitaka took care of illustrations and character design so the card will be really succesfull also among trading card fans.
Seems that Square Enix has been pretty busy with the release of Crysis Core for PSP since Eternal Wheel has not even been listed on their homepage.
HALF LIFE 2: New arcade version
Today during the AM Show in Makuhari Taito showed the upgrade of the arcade version of HALF LIFE 2 (released in Japan last year in june). This upgrade will show up in a couple of days in Japanese Game Centers and features new weapons, new missions and new maps.
