Thanks to Music Game Checker (@otoge_checker) on Twitter (source Tweet), we are now aware of more of the latest development on mainland China's induction of the 4th-generation Taiko no Tatsujin arcade.
Guangzhou Wahlap Tech, Bandai Namco's mainland-China collaborator on the venture, has opened a WeChat official account called "Taiko Drummers' Plaza" (太鼓鼓众广场) on the messaging/social media app. On the account's first public post dated 2023/06/20 featuring the above simplified-Chinese poster, a taster event in Guangzhou on 2023/07/05 is announced in which two lucky followers can try out the game and meet-and-greet with the team. The registration for the drawing (follow and comment with your "Taiko no Tatsujin story") will close on 2023/06/25.
While none of us could physically attend the taster event, we have at least tried to follow this WeChat official account. Even at the account's current placeholder state, the experience reveals a lot about how the mainland China iteration will play.
In case you didn't know (we also didn't know before this lel), aside from just a typical social media feed and private message chat interface, WeChat official accounts can also host "services" for followers to use.
Currently, the only service available with this account is "How to Play" (游戏介绍) which redirects to a webpage explaining how to play (same content as the Japanese but translated to simplified Chinese). However, the automated welcome message mentions that another service "Player ID" (玩家ID) to be available at the official launch this Fall, which Donders would use to log in to the game.
This reveal potentially explains a peculiar discovery that was found in the original press release: if you zoom into the cabinet picture, you might see that the cabinet does NOT have an IC card reader and has a static QR code instead. We are speculating that the mainland cabinets will mainly use QR codes to access Donder profiles, for example:
- Donders will scan the QR code on the cabinet with the WeChat app so that the server knows to load the Donder profile here
Addendum (2023/06/23): on second thought this possibility has serious cyber security implications, the least of which is people can save the cabinet code and scan anywhere to steal the spot - Donders will generate a QR code (maybe with one-time token hashed in for security) on the WeChat app every time before they play, which will be scanned by the cabinet's QR code reader to access their Donder profile
This also explains the handle because this account's upcoming service(s) might be the equivalent of the Donder Hiroba companion site in mainland China.
Meanwhile, replies to the source Tweet mentioned that Wahlap accidentally left the song list viewable (probably through URL guessing) for a short time, which has since been fixed. The brief glance reveals some exclusive tracks like 逆战 (possibly by Jason Zhang) and 兩只老虎 (possibly returning from AC11 Asia).
