Four whole months have gone since last July's Taiko no Tatsujin World Championship 2024 Finals event, the first event in which it was officially announced the coming of modern Taiko arcades in the United States, with a blurb stating how operations in the continent would be beginning on November 2024. Now that the month in question has come (and it's almost gone), ... what about it?
As it turns out, Bandai Namco has been attending the ongoing edition of the IAAPA Expo 2024 in Orlando (Florida), the latest venue for presenting and showing attractions for game centers and the sorts, to the larger public of arcade goers and managers all over the world. This was also the first venue in which Nijiiro Version cabinets were showcased on a bigger scale, for further-down-the-line distribution of it across the States! We've been following up this story over our social media handles at Twitter/X and BlueSky, but for this here post we'll be aiming for a middle-of-the-road summary of the bit of news that the more-seasoned Taiko audience might wanna be hearing about first.
Just like for the content shared/retweeted on social media, most of the videos/SNS messages you're about to see beyond the jump are part of the extended coverage of the event in question made by the independent arcade-versed newscasting website Arcade Heroes, including some extra details that the contributors to said websites have gathered by talking to staffers and managers from Bandai Namco at the venue.
Up here is recorded footage of one of the arcades in action, with voiceover going over the details about several facets of Taiko no Tatsujin's US distribution that were also covered on the Arcade Heroes website, including the planned release schedule and user pricing model.
Nijiiro Version's American journey is indeed starting this month, but a really limited batch that appears to be already distributed and soft-launching in the coming weeks (100 of which being already reportedly sold to American amusement chain Round1) and a second batch planned to be shipped on Spring 2025. There have also been inquiries on the event about a tentative arcade distribution in Europe, which has been indeed confirmed by Bandai Namco representatives themselves, between managers at Oregon's IAAPA Expo '24 and on the European branch's own Twitter/X profile, as shown below this very paragraph. No other details about its distribution, though, so the wait game rages on...
Hey @IKIGAI_ARCADE You can register your interest in Taiko no Tatsujin via sales@bandainamco-am.com and refer to @arcadeheroes for further details on shipping. Thanks for checking in!
— Bandai Namco Amusement Europe (@BandaiNamcoAE) November 20, 2024
For the nitty-and-gritty details that only seasoned Donder would even be aware of, here's a skinny of what we've scouted with the event's arcade footage being shown online thus far:
- The arcades at the event, much like the ones from early-2024's location tests, are running the latest available firmware build from General Asia/Oceania regions (GV 43.03), shown not only on the top corner but also with the latest timegated elements being available (more prominently, the Help Me, Saitama 2000!! song that was added yesterday and the 2024 Music Recruitment General User Poll campaign banners appearing as popups);
- Donder Hiroba access for American audiences is currently being worked on, although now it's sitting as inactive for online-related content, which makes it difficult at this point in time to comment on whether this Nijiiro build has a few licensed songs missing or if they're arranged in a different order from other General Asia firmware builds altogether;
- Bandai Namco ID/Banapassport support is now operative and -while not being able to interact with any iteration of the Donder Hiroba as of now- already lets people access Nijiiro's two signature modes for single-player sessions: AI Battle and Dan-i Dojo (Ranking Dojo);
- Some of the arcades at the IAAPA Expo showfloor were shown with slightly-differing graphics (most notably, a different series logo) which might lead to believe that localized Taiko arcades might come with unique features that are yet to be disclosed.
Also mentioned in the video is the intended play fee for the general audience of a sum of cash for a single song play (20¢ per song at IAAPA, discretion variable according to the respective game center manager), instead of having multiple songs under a single credit play. Once again, we invite you to reach out to the sourced link at the bottom of this post for the original takeouts from the Arcade Heroes contributors who had a chance to experience this Western venue hands-on!
One last thing to close this post on is another Taiko-themed ride for amusement centers that are aimed to the younger audiences: a Don-Chan kiddy ride! Also unveiled at Oregon's IAAPA Expo 2024, the Taiko no Tatsujin Kiddie Ride will have its riders gently tilting around, while randomly-chosen peppy music from the series and Taiko drum siblings donning random avatar combos. Don't forget to tap the drums as they blink to play along!
