Sega Joypolis celebrates its 20th anniversary this year with a new attraction: the Zero Latency VR. It's a free-roam multiplayer VR (virtual reality) system created by Sega Live Creation that will open on July 23. The first game available for Zero Latency VR is a shooting game named Zombie Survival. The action takes place in a town that is attacked by a horde of zombies, the players fight the zombies to protect the rescue base. The game area is 16,8m x 16,8m (282 m²) and the playtimeis 30 minutes (briefing time 15 minutes + play time 15 minutes). Reservation for the attraction start on July 19, 9:00 on the special site. Up to 6 people can play together. The age limit is 13 year old minimum and the price is 1800Yen. You can watch the Zero Latency VR trailer here and the Zombie Survival trailer here.

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The famous G-Front arcade game store in Akihabara is moving! Previously on Kuramae-hashi Dori, the shop will now be located in the Chuo Dori main street in a building housing a Lawson convenience store, 100m from the old address. During the move, the G-Front store will be closed from July 19th to 31st for a reopening on August 1st at the new address: Sotokanda 5-1-3. You can get there directly by taking the Ginza subway line and getting off at Suehirocho station. If you come from JR Akihabara subway station, take the main street where there are two Club Sega and Hey. Walk along this street up to the Suehirocho subway station. Instead of turning left to go to the old shop, cross the intersection to go straight towards McDonald's, the new G-Front shop is located above Lawson on your right just after the intersection. With Mak Japan and Try (whose shop moved four years ago, leaving the famous Try Amusement Tower), G-Front is one of the three main second-hand arcade shops of Akihabara. The fact that the store was emptied over the years by Western retailers and many new Japanese arcade games are released in dematerialized format caused a significant reduction of the sales area (we saw it at the time of our last visit; store size decreased from three floors in 2008 to one in 2015). The new store will be smaller but a bit better located. Although prices of old PCBs have exploded in recent years due to the "retro gaming" madness, there are still many newer titles to be found at great price and you often come across little known gems at low price. There are also posters, joysticks, buttons, cables and other accessories. In any case, you never leave G-Front empty handed.

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Takara Tomy Arts and Marvelous cooperate to create a children's arcade game named Pokémon Ga-Olé that is out today. It's a card game that uses a special type of cards designed for children named "Olé disk". They are more thicker than normal game cards. Kids introduce them in a card reader and a 1vs1 Pokémon battle starts. 50 Olé disk are already available for the game launch. The game cabinet features a 50" screen. Get Chance! Pokémon Ga-Olé! (Get Chance！ ポケモンガオーレ！) is the theme song of Pokémon Ga-OléHideaki Takatori, Aya Ikeda and Shōgo Kameda. You can watch the trailer here and a gameplay movie here.

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Everyone knows Pac-Man, the hit arcade game from the early '80s starring a character who became so popular that he became Namco's mascot. First 4 Figures now offers to pre-order statues of the famous yellow ball. Created by artist Todor Kolev and approved by Bandai Namco Entertainment, the figure is 17" (43cm) tall, it stages Pac-Man wearing his traditional orange gloves and red boots pointing a finger to the sky. It gives the impression to jump out of the maze adorning the base on which he's placed. As usual, two versions are available, a regular edition for $180 and an exclusive limited edition featuring a big pair of cherries on a independent base for $200. Each copy of the two editions is numbered and comes with a certificate of authenticity. The production will be launched in the first quarter of 2017. Statues of the different ghosts of the game should follow. Pre-order the exclusive edition here (use PACX15 code to get a reduction of $15) and the standard version here ($10 discount with code PACR10).

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Tekken 7 Fated Retribution hits Japan today. As usual, Bandai Namco releases a big update of the latest Tekken game. Tekken 7 Fated Retribution continues the story of the Mishima family and introduces a new character: Akuma from Street Fighter! He's not be just a guest but he has a deep connection with the story of Tekken. Katsuhiro Harada has revealed that the man that we can see with Kazumi in the dojo in Tekken 7 intro was in fact Akuma and not Heihachi as everybody thinks. Tekken 7 Fated Retribution features better graphics, new characters (Akuma and a returning Nina wearing a bride outfit), new costumes for all characters and new stages. There are also several new gameplay mechanics as the Rage Drive. Bandai Namco also announced THE KING OF IRON FIST TOURNAMENT 2016 will be held soon. This tournament is open to everybody and features a cash prize of 10 000 000 Yen! You can watch the 1st trailer here and the second here.

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Hiroshi Utsumi left Sega yesterday. Mr. Utsumi was supervising the development of Hatsune Miku Project DIVA games since the beginning of the franchise in 2009. He left the company by desire to take on new challenges and explore new fields. He thanked Sega and his team members for their understanding. This does not mean the end of Project DIVA in any way and many projects are still under way like the Hatsune Miku -Project DIVA- X HD and Hatsune Miku VR: Future Live console games as well as Hatsune Miku Magical Mirai 2016 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba in September. Hatsune Miku Magical Mirai 2016 will feature hologram concerts and an exhibition dedicated to the star of Vocaloid. New songs will be added to Project DIVA Arcade Future Tone regularly and several projects are planned to celebrate Hatsune Miku's 10th anniversary in 2017. We wish Mr. Utsumi a lot of success with his future projects.

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maimai PINK PLUS is available today. Sega adds new songs to its musical game in "POP & animation", "niconico & Vocaloid", "the East Project" and "Game & Variety" categories. A new feature named "grade certification" is also added to test the players skills: the player will get a rank certification if he clears 4 songs of a determined degree of difficulty with a RANK S or more. And finally, another new feature appears: "event course", the player must clear 4 songs of a degree of difficulty he can choose with a RANK A or more. The two first event courses are GochiUsa course (with songs from the anime Gochūmon wa usagi desu ka?/Is the Order a Rabbit?) and East Project course.

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Dragon Quest: Monster Battle Scanner starts operation today. This is the successor of Dragon Quest: Monster Battle Road released in 2006. Square Enix and Marvelous celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series with this new arcade opus, a "scan battle RPG" in which the player scans cards to make monsters and equipment appear in the game. The gameplay is similar to Battle Road: the red button for the offensive attack and blue for defensive attacks. This time, the ultimate attacks are launched using the stick of the dragon (which replaces the Zenithian sword) when the energy gauge is full. There are three different cards S, M and L sizes. The size depends on the monster size. Players can also create a personalised card with his favourite monster pose. Dragon Quest: Monster Battle Scanner features 2 modes: arcade and adventure. To celebrate the game's release, Square Enix has released some goodies: cards holders, t-shirts, towels, bags,... You can see the trailer here and opening here.

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Sega announced the upcoming release of Border Break X during a press conference in March. It's tomorrow that this new version will be available. The new visual theme is green and the main changes concern the weapons. A new type of weapons appeared to respond to any situation of war: guerilla weapons. Sniper weapons were completely renewed. A new map is added: Island Rakuana - sunny sky under a hot air. Two new "event battle" are available: "base overwhelm warfare" and "Rush Challenge".

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The 6th Data Discs release celebrates the 30th anniversary of a well-known Sega license: OutRun. This famous racing game had marked the spirits at its release in 1986 especially thanks to its original concept, its perfect realization and its Ferrari Testarossa. But what made its success it is also the music that still recognizable from the first notes even today. Three titles that the player selected via the car radio, were available: Passing Breeze, Magical Sound Shower and Splash Wave. They were composed by Hiroshi "Hiro" Kawaguchi, a well known member of the SEGA Sound Team. Vinyls edited by Data Disc include the 3 tracks from the arcade version plus Last Wave (the high-score music) on one side and on the other side Step on Beat (from the Mega Drive's 1991 version), Cruising Line and Camino a Mi Amor (from the Nintendo 3DS version released in 2014). Music from the arcade version have been recorded directly from the original OutRun cabinet and all songs have been carefully remastered wit. As usual, the packaging is pretty neat and has 3 interchangeable sleeves, an OBI, and a liner note written by Hiro. The three traditional editions are available: limited mint green, transparent and pink edition (available exclusively on Data Discs website), mint green edition and black edition. A 4th special edition available in very limited quantities (50 copies) is reserved for early buyers. It is identical to the limited version but it is signed and numbered by Hiro! It will be assigned randomly to 50 lucky buyers among people who have pre-ordered the limited version within 12 hours after the first pre-order is placed. Preorders start on Saturday 25th June at 19:00 (UK time) at Data Discs. All editions are priced at £19.99 (26€) and the vinyls should be shipped in July.

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