Namco Bandai Games Talks to Highway About the State of Arcade
Last week, Highway Games sat down with two members from the International Sales Section at Namco Bandai Games Inc. – Kana Nagai, and Tsuyoshi Imura. We asked them a few questions about Namco Bandai Games, the year that's been and the year to come, and how they plan to ride the ever-changing waves of the amusement, entertainment and arcade industry.
How would you describe 2012 for Namco?
It was a very happy year for us because we were able to expand the international market. Also, in consoles we were number one in the domestic market, and our business developed a lot in mobile games and applications.
Excellent! And what is the current state of the Japanese market?
There are many F.E.C's coming out recently.
Okay, so you think it's becoming more family orientated?
Somehow maybe this year we could maintain the market, but maybe next year might be difficult for us.
Why would it be difficult?
Because more shopping centers have completed construction already this last year, so there will be no more increasing, so the number of arcade centers will not increase. We expect that each operator will compete.
We have only three machine makers in Japan: Namco Bandai, Sega, Konami. (…) Recently, Namco as a company has very strongly adapted to the market, and has very strongly tried to market games, so that is why we make new attempts to spread across the global market, there are so many new categories to make and build games for(…) so we really want to try and spread arcade games globally.
Namco Bandai will be exhibiting at JAEPO next, is there anything you can tell us about the exhibit and what we might see there?
JAEPO is opening February 15th to 16th at the Japan Makuhari Messe Exhibition Center. Last year the AOU show and JAMMA show joined at the same location. Namco Bandai Games will have a huge exhibition area in the show, and Namco will have two stores: one is Domestic machine store and International machine store. The International machine store will have the very popular new game, Wangan International Maximum Tune 4, as well as Pac-Man Smash – an air-hockey game- and Dark Escape 4D; three very popular machines will be in store and waiting for our international customers.
Any fresh machines?
The International store will not have any new machines, but domestic machines have new machines for this show. New driving game similar to Mario Kart and new driving game similar to Supercars, and new motorcycle game are being prepared for Japan.
Is Namco Bandai trying to expand its online server globally, for example to the US? Because I know a lot of fans were a bit unhappy that they couldn't get games such as the Maximum Tune 4.
We first started the Maximum Tune 4 in Hong Kong, and we are doing it in Taiwan and Malaysia, but we haven't been able to do this machine in Indonesia and China yet, so our next target is mainland China and Indonesia, and after that we would like the challenge of the European market, then after that the United States.
So you do want to take the Maximum Tune 4 over to those areas?
We hope, but we can't…
You hope to, but you can't confirm it will happen?
Yes. Online business is very difficult, we have to do a lot of research and we have to have server near.
We understand you've already started in America?
We haven't started yet. Last year, we shipped a high volume of machines [to America] but only Tekken, (…) Wangan cannot access North America to Japan. We have only one server in Japan, and at the moment it cannot access mainland China, Indonesia, etc. So that's our next target, and we are trying strongly to enter that market. My company engineer cannot make online work, so right now, we are trying online speed, quality and online cost, cost is very important. We are testing in Indonesia in one suburb for one month, checking for any other way, but right now we are researching.
So the Tekken, you tried it already in America?
We put it in Los Angeles last year, but with the Tekken, the system is different from Wangan 4, so we could test it. But with Wangan 4, we only have a server in Japan, so it was difficult, we couldn't test it.
And what was the result of the Tekken?
The Tekken was good, but they like the console version more, so not many people came to the arcade to play the machine. The machine has the same quality as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but almost every home has [these consoles], so they can enjoy it in their house.
Talking of Tekken, are there any plans for a Tekken versus Street Fighter coin-op arcade game?
That was our strategy that we didn't do Tekken versus Street Fighter in arcade version. The console version was made by Capcom, it's not ours, but for arcade, if we were to do that we need to talk with Capcom, but we have no plans for that.
If we were to make Tekken versus Capcom then we might consider, because the last version was by Capcom, they did everything. So we might do that in future. We want to keep having fun by working with Capcom.
I also wanted to get your view, there are a lot of predictions being made about the future of arcade at the moment…
We will focus more on family entertainment. Year by year our business target is for family entertainment centers. Recently, the markets in Europe, US… North America and South America, and Indonesia, have opened many family entertainment centers. (…) Tekken, Street Fighter and etcetera, cannot gather many people, that is why video game creators and machine makers make less for arcade game centers. Recently, there have been less arcade game centers, and more home mobile and home consoles, that is why we target family entertainment centers for the future.
Your meaning is you think, as a manufacturer, that the way forward is to build more simulator style machines to suit families, like Dark Escape?
Yes (laughs). Loyal heavy user machines cannot do as well in the future, it is easier to just get a console.
You don't think that traditional arcade centers have a future in the way that they used to operate, but more the future for arcade is in family entertainment and simulators?
Over one decade, two decades, we have many simulator machines having many machines in stores globally, so we will never change this style in arcade centers. In family entertainment centers we try new video games, (…) the traditional operators, small operators on the street, might have to change to family centers in future (…). If they want to keep operating they have to change the way they operate by changing the machines for families.
If there is a company that makes a new arcade [type] then the situation might change. If they make a good one, then the players might like it.
We've been hearing a lot about Mario Kart 3, we were talking about that before, I was wondering if Namco Bandai was thinking of doing an upgrade kit for Mario Kart 1 and 2?
We just know that the company is making the driving game for family [entertainment centers], like Mario Kart, but we don't know what it's going to be.
But on your side at the moment, there's no interest for the Western market, the variety machine is only for domestic, is that right?
For now, only domestic. Only because for Japan it's huge, Japan people very much like arcade games, that is why we want to try it first in Japan.
I also have some questions that were sent to us to ask you. The first one is about Dead Heat Riders, I'm not sure how much you know about the machine they showed at EAG, but was it a prototype?
This product, I think, is base concept. Dead Heat and motorcycle games are very successful in the US, so the target market would be North America family entertainment centers and similar locations. But main target would be North America, price unknown. And machine unknown (laughs).
On the Maximum Tune 4, some customers want the gear stick on the other side…
Which country?
Europe.
When we produce product in Europe we might put it on the other side. I think Dead Heat they have the gears on the right side in the United States.
Fans also wanted to know if there will be any new Soul Calibur or Time Crisis arcade games coming out?
I don't know that (laughs). We are a sales team so we have very little information about what they are thinking about, but we are having many comments saying that players want a new game, but why we don't do that is because we know it is not going to be popular.
What are Namco's goals and aims for 2013?
We want to spread Wangan Maximum Tune 4 as far as possible. Next are China and Indonesia, and we hope for the future to be able to bring it to Europe and the US, but for now our main focus is China and Indonesia this year.
Thank you to Kana Nagai and Tsuyoshi Imura for taking time out during their trip to Australia to talk with us here at Highway Games.
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