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GF/DM V at Blasters in Michigan

Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 8:48 am
by Ho
I was responding to a post in the Beatmania forum that prompted me to check the current machine inventory at Blasters in Michigan.

According to DDR Freak, they have Guitar Freaks and Drummania V! Hmm...this may call for another road trip.

Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 8:10 pm
by MonMotha
Are they on E-Amuse? Count me in either way :)

I'm not quite as enthusiastic, simply by way of having played both before, but I'm always up for some Guitar Freaks action (though I suck at Drummania). And hey, Session always rules!

Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 8:27 pm
by seveneleven
i suck at all Bemani games that ive tried but i soo want to check out DM really bad and that place seems really effin cool damn now i really want a car >_<

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:20 am
by BakaOrochi
e-amuse will NEVER be in America.

KoJ and Konami Asia ONLY accept IPs and establishments in the approved regions. America is not one of them.

Their DrumMania V has been broken FOREVER now (even when it was a Percussion Freaks 8th, and this has been for well over a year now), so don't bother with that, because they don't know how to fix it.

But the Guitar Freaks V works great, I've been able to score some 99% Perfects with some moderate level EXT songs, and even got Fairy Tales =)

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:38 am
by MonMotha
BakaOrochi wrote:e-amuse will NEVER be in America.

KoJ and Konami Asia ONLY accept IPs and establishments in the approved regions. America is not one of them.
IP addresses that are apparently from Japan can be arranged in the USA. The cost is just high enough that it's not worthwhile for this purpose. That and an address in Japan is probably not worth acquiring just to be on e-Amuse either.

It really is a pity that Konami completely abandoned the USA arcade market. There's clearly still enough of a market to support some games. The popularity of DDR is enough that they could probably make some money, if they could get a reasonably priced one that people didn't immediately bootleg onto 2nd hand Japanese machines.

Instead, they're concentrating on the home market. That's fine, but I'd like to see some arcade backing. Even with a really overblown ASC, there's still something to be had with an arcade. The Japanese versions always have more songs (new, not yet on home version, as well as the ones from the older members of the series) than CS, and the overall experience is often just worlds ahead of even a rather nice home setup (a real IIDX machine is just...wow).

Sadly, even if they did make a US release of Bemani arcades, they'd probably screw them up so badly as to make them worthless to serious players: apparently, the US (home) release of Beatmania [IIDX] has L7 only, no real 7k charts. (EDIT: I should point out that this is just a rumor that I heard soemwhere on VJ Army, and has not been confirmed to my knowledge)
Their DrumMania V has been broken FOREVER now (even when it was a Percussion Freaks 8th, and this has been for well over a year now), so don't bother with that, because they don't know how to fix it.
I know it was quite janky when we were up there (moreso than the Putt Putt IIDX machine), but it was remotely playable (although the provided drumsticks had no head, and I didn't have any of my own).
But the Guitar Freaks V works great, I've been able to score some 99% Perfects with some moderate level EXT songs, and even got Fairy Tales =)
But there's no point without the Session mode being worthwhile :) I suck badly enough at GF that a road trip would not be worthwhile unless session was playable.

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 4:40 am
by BakaOrochi
MonMotha wrote:IP addresses that are apparently from Japan can be arranged in the USA. The cost is just high enough that it's not worthwhile for this purpose. That and an address in Japan is probably not worth acquiring just to be on e-Amuse either.
Yes I know, IPs can be spoofed. But there's also other factors that Konami checks (including installing the e-amuse machines...which if you're not in Japan/Asia, then there's no point).
It really is a pity that Konami completely abandoned the USA arcade market. There's clearly still enough of a market to support some games. The popularity of DDR is enough that they could probably make some money, if they could get a reasonably priced one that people didn't immediately bootleg onto 2nd hand Japanese machines.
Unfortunately, Konami isn't the only one. Capcom folded, Atari's out, Midway's out, Namco's taking more of their games straight to console (see: SoulCalibur III), Williams is out of business...there really isn't a whole lot of companies left in America.
Instead, they're concentrating on the home market.
Which Konami of America doesn't fully realize that there CAN be a niche market for this sort of thing, but they acted way too late; now they're gone.
Sadly, even if they did make a US release of Bemani arcades, they'd probably screw them up so badly as to make them worthless to serious players: apparently, the US (home) release of Beatmania [IIDX] has L7 only, no real 7k charts. (EDIT: I should point out that this is just a rumor that I heard soemwhere on VJ Army, and has not been confirmed to my knowledge)
It's a rumor, I believe that was based off of the preview version, which is spawning SO much stupid speculation, it's ridiculous. People are already making up their minds about a game that was in very very early production before waiting to see what else would be forthcoming. And people wonder how fans can potentially ruin a game series, this may be one of them.
I know it was quite janky when we were up there (moreso than the Putt Putt IIDX machine), but it was remotely playable (although the provided drumsticks had no head, and I didn't have any of my own).
You may have been lucky. I have been able to pull off a few songs, but I find the snare or the hi hat will die or not pick up some of my hits, and on songs like Right on Time, Escape to the Sky, Misirlou, or those that are Hi-Hat and Snare intensive, you're screwed. I know several people that have confirmed this too for a while.
But there's no point without the Session mode being worthwhile :) I suck badly enough at GF that a road trip would not be worthwhile unless session was playable.
Don't be hating on my favorite Bemani game =(

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 6:18 am
by MonMotha
BakaOrochi wrote:Yes I know, IPs can be spoofed. But there's also other factors that Konami checks (including installing the e-amuse machines...which if you're not in Japan/Asia, then there's no point).
Spoofing the IP for a full TCP connection and doing anything useful with it is pretty much impossible. What you end up doing is either getting a fractional T1 to an ISP in Japan (you don't want to know the cost) or (more likely) tunneling over a normal connection to an ISP or other POP in Japan. MTU goes down (and latency fscking sucks), but it does appear that you are physically in Japan. However, if Konami likes to show up on site to do things to the machine, yeah, that's a little harder to forge :)

Unfortunately, Konami isn't the only one. Capcom folded, Atari's out, Midway's out, Namco's taking more of their games straight to console (see: SoulCalibur III), Williams is out of business...there really isn't a whole lot of companies left in America.
Namco is in an interesting position: they own a very large number of arcade establishments in the US. However, they seem to be shooting that market in the foot with all their direct or very quick to console releases.
Instead, they're concentrating on the home market.
Which Konami of America doesn't fully realize that there CAN be a niche market for this sort of thing, but they acted way too late; now they're gone.
Indeed, at this point, a large portion of the potential customer base for this (people who are already interested in the series) have made the investment to be able to play the Japanese versions, and have purchased (or otherwise "acquired") that software. With how bad US releases tend to be in comparison to Japanese releases, it is likely those users will just stick with their Japanese versions.
It's a rumor, I believe that was based off of the preview version, which is spawning SO much stupid speculation, it's ridiculous. People are already making up their minds about a game that was in very very early production before waiting to see what else would be forthcoming. And people wonder how fans can potentially ruin a game series, this may be one of them.
Sure, rumors like that can easily ruin a game before it ever hits the shelves, but there's a very good reason that things like that show up: past releases of these series have been dumbed down for the US releases. The US releases of DDR have a generally easier song selection than their JP counterparts (though the Max series is notably present), and of course most of the licenses just fscking suck. Simply put, their track record isn't very good (witness the debacle that was Extreme US).
Don't be hating on my favorite Bemani game =(
Oh, I love Guitar Freaks. I just suck at it badly enough that a road trip isn't probably worth it unless session is usable.

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:19 pm
by BakaOrochi
Namco arcade division and Namco homtek are completely separate divisions. I believe I heard that Namco arcade division was actually pissed off that Namco of Japan and homtek decided on a home release so quickly after the arcade...probably because based on Tekken 4, they didn't think the arcade games, especially Tekken 5 was going to do so well (surprise surprise).

As for the US market, I think it's only recently (compared to Japan) that companies are realizing that music games actually make money. I mean now there's that Bratz game, Barbie game, DDR, ITG, PIU, Taiko, Technic Beat, blah blah blah. But the problem is, it's still too new and the American audience is too impatient, that if a game is TOO hard, then they'll just sell it back and get rid of it, which is why I hate American mainstream gamers, they force game companies to make games too easy =(

Also, Konami of America doesn't produce the American games, Konami of Japan does. KoA does the localizing kinds of stuff, but they don't have much say of what goes in. That crappy US Extreme interface? KoJ's idea.

Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 4:04 pm
by elcuebee
BakaOrochi wrote:e-amuse will NEVER be in America.
Haha, this got proven wrong didn't it? :D

Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 9:00 pm
by Cbav
liquidblue aka DBV wrote:
BakaOrochi wrote:e-amuse will NEVER be in America.
Haha, this got proven wrong didn't it? :D
nice bump.

Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 10:10 pm
by elcuebee
Cbav wrote:
liquidblue aka DBV wrote:
BakaOrochi wrote:e-amuse will NEVER be in America.
Haha, this got proven wrong didn't it? :D
nice bump.
it's not really that bad, nothing else in this forum was getting talked about
wish i knew if this DM/GF still existed, or if there were ANY in the Indy area

Re:

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2022 11:02 pm
by BakaOrochi
elcuebee wrote:
Wed Aug 01, 2007 4:04 pm
BakaOrochi wrote:e-amuse will NEVER be in America.
Haha, this got proven wrong didn't it? :D
I did! But if we're talking about the V4 location test, then it really never came, it was simply tested but we never saw a full release of the game. BUT also, you can argue that it came during SuperNOVA 2's test build then as well. And the context of this posted was getting Blaster's GFdm V online, which there would've been no way to do it onto the official servers at the time, even if IPs were spoofed and what-not. Plus at that time, private networks like PW didn't exist nor conceived yet.

It came more in 2010-ish when Round 1 opened in Puente Hills Mall and weren't temporary location test machines. Even then, e-amusement wasn't available for every single game initially.

I don't regret saying it though, because at the time there was no feasible way it could come over as it was and be maintained at a reasonable cost to American independent arcades (since at the time of posting that, Namco arcades were pulling out and most chain arcades were already dying out), along with using Konami of Japan's business model (which hasn't changed, as no random Joe with a machine can easily spoof their way onto their official network and expect to operate that machine in their arcade on the official e-amusement network).

It mostly only came now because of Round 1's presence, which wasn't something anyone could've imagined expanding at the time.

Re: GF/DM V at Blasters in Michigan

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2022 9:53 pm
by Potter
I live for these 15+ year thread bumps

Re: GF/DM V at Blasters in Michigan

Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2022 6:57 pm
by BakaOrochi
I didn't even know this thread was still going decades later, but my super outdated post came up in a recent Google search for something e-amusement related :lol:

Re: GF/DM V at Blasters in Michigan

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2022 11:01 am
by Merk
lmao it is hilarious when you're Googling some obscure DDR cabinet issue and you see IndyDDR within the top five search results


Some info on here is legendary. Shout outs to Ho, MonMotha, and basically just those two guys they know their shit