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GuitarFreaks & DrumMania Masterpiece Silver announced
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Konami officially announced the "Best Hits" version of Guitar Freaks & DrumMania that was first hinted at back in March through a user poll. Titled GuitarFreaks & DrumMania Masterpiece Silver, this compilation game will feature over 70 songs, including classics like Timepiece Phase II, Model DD2, Shining Ray, Train-Train, Rocket Dive, and more. Additionally, the user interface will be customizable, likely through a selection of skins. The game is to be released on the PS2 on August 31, 2006 for 6980 yen.
As pure speculation, the title could also refer to the possibility of additional Masterpiece games, such as Masterpiece Gold. Konami has not announced anything of the sort, but Konami did produce 262 new songs for the unreleased GF/DM arcade versions (5th/4th through 11th/10th), leaving about 190 that have not yet been ported to a home version after Masterpiece Silver is released. |
Wednesday, June 07, 2006 by J.T. Kauffman
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beatmania IIDX 11 IIDX RED ships
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The latest beatmania IIDX, release, titled beatmania IIDX 11 IIDX RED, has begun shipping for the PS2. Featuring over 80 songs and customizable user interface options, RED looks to be the best home version of IIDX yet. |
Thursday, May 18, 2006 by J.T. Kauffman
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Full songlist revealed for PS2 beatmania IIDX11 IIDX RED
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With the game set for release in just one week, Konami revealed the full song list for the PlayStation 2 version of beatmania IIDX11 IIDX RED. The game will feature 89 songs, including the 52 songs that debuted in the arcade version and two from the US beatmania. The full song list can be viewed on Konami's IIDX11 page.
Konami also revealed the poster that will ship with pre-orders of the game from Konamistyle.jp. Though the pre-order poster is many times simply a smaller version of the arcade poster, the IIDX11 poster is different (yet still similar):
beatmania IIDX11 IIDX RED is due for release in Japan for the PS2 on May 18, 2006.
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Wednesday, May 10, 2006 by J.T. Kauffman
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Pop'n Music 13 Carnival announced for PS2
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Konami recently announced that Pop'n Music 13 Carnival would be hitting the PS2. No date or price was announced, though more information will be released May 1. |
Saturday, April 29, 2006 by J.T. Kauffman
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March sales figures released by Famitsu
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Famitsu recently released console software sales figures for the month of March in Japan. According to the data released, GuitarFreaks V & DrumMania V was the 33rd best selling title of the month, and sold 22,136 copies total. Pop'n Music 12 Iroha was two slots beneath the Gitadora title, coming in at number 35 with 21,801 copies sold.
Surprisingly, Dance Dance Revolution STR!KE was nowhere to be seen on the list, meaning that it sold less than 7,000 copies for the month. This is particularly disheartening for the series, as the game sold a mere 7,498 copies in February, meaning that DDR is performing between 33% and 66% worse that GFDM or Pop'n Music. Luckily the series remains strong in North America given the recent announcement of 3 additional titles.
With GitadoraV's strong performance it isn't surprising in the least that Konami is planning at least one more future home release for the series.
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Wednesday, April 12, 2006 by J.T. Kauffman
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Beatmania IIDX 11 IIDXRED Konamistyle Special Editions announced
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Konami recently announced that the upcoming Beatmania IIDX 11 IIDXRED would be released in two different special editions. The standard special edition, priced at 8000 yen, will contain the game, V-Rare Soundtrack 14, a poster, and a limited edition strap. Konami will also release the Limited Edition Complete Set, which will run 11800 yen and include the above along with Visual Emotions 4 and a limited edition box/slipcover.
IIDXRED, along with both versions of the special edition, is set for release on the PlayStation 2 on May 18. |
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 by J.T. Kauffman
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Three new DDRs, Karaoke Revolution announced
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Konami appears to have released its fall schedule for consoles to retailers today, and with it comes four new BEMANI titles. The latest arcade iteration of Dance Dance Revolution, SuperNOVA, is scheduled to arrive very quickly, on September 13, 2006 on the PlayStation 2. The Xbox 360 will see its first BEMANI release a month later when Dance Dance Revolution Universe hits on October 11, 2006. Rounding out the trio of DDR titles is Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 4 for the original Xbox, which hits on November 14, 2006. Finally, the Karaoke Revolution series gets even more mainstream with the release of Karaoke Revolution: American Idol on November 15, 2006.
Note that as of the present time, this report is unconfirmed. The source of the information is Loki of Orange Lounge Radio, who has reported other information in the past that has been both correct and incorrect. We'll bring you more on these titles as news develops.
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Wednesday, April 12, 2006 by J.T. Kauffman
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Beatmania US now available
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The long-awaited American debut of the Beatmania series is upon us - Konami confirmed today that Beatmania for the US PlayStation 2 has shipped. Including both the US version of the game (which has songs from a variety of Japanese Beatmania IIDX Styles and a re-skinned version of the 9th Style interface) and a slightly-modified Beatmania IIDX controller, the game retails for $59.99.
As is the case with nearly all game releases, the game has shipped from warehouses today and should be in most stores starting tomorrow, though there are isolated reports of Gamestop and EB Games locations having received the game already. Additionally, the online stores for both EB Games and Gamestop show the title as shipping within 24 hours. However, online pre-orders from EB Games and Amazon (via Toys R Us) have not yet shipped; no word on the status of online Gamestop pre-orders.
Finally, the bundle packaging was recently unveiled as well: |
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 by J.T. Kauffman
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Unlocks completed for Guitar Freaks & Drummania, Keyboardmania
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Unlock information has been completed for both the Guitar Freaks & Drummania series, as well as the Keyboardmania series. Additionally, unlock info was added for Beatmania Best Hits. Additional unlock information will be added by series, starting with Beatmania. |
Saturday, March 25, 2006 by J.T. Kauffman
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Konami posts poll for new GuitarFreaks & DrumMania title
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Konami recently posted a poll regarding a new GuitarFreaks & DrumMania project that they have started. Users are asked to choose one skin and three songs from the seven GuitarFreaks & DrumMania games that did not make it to home consoles (5th/4th through 11th/10th), as well as ee'Mall songs. Voting will be open until April 6th.
The text that Konami posted is vague, but this does confirm that there will be another GuitarFreaks & DrumMania home release, and it will likely be a compilation of user-chosen songs. It also appears that just one skin will be used, though it likely would not be difficult to add multiple skins. |
Friday, March 24, 2006 by J.T. Kauffman
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Hardware news: PS3 to be region-free, more
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During Sony's keynote speech at the Game Developer's Conference in San Jose, Phil Harrison revealed a piece of information that should impact the hardware-purchasing aspects of many BEMANI fans - the PlayStation 3 will feature region-free games. That means that a US PS3 will be able to play Japanese games without any sort of modification. Previously revealed was the fact that the PS3 will be 100% backwards compatible with both the original PlayStation and the PlayStation 2. What was not revealed was whether a region lock would be present on the backwards compatibility, though with the "single SKU" mindset that Sony has in regards to the PS3 games, a single worldwide version of the unit would not be surprising.
On the handheld front, it was recently revealed that Sony will be putting into place a system to play PlayStation games on the PSP. It appears that this will be done via an archive server and not via transferring the contents of already-purchased games to the PSP. On the other hand, this hints at the strong possibility of playing all of the original PlayStation BEMANI titles on the go, though no specific titles were confirmed in the reports.
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Thursday, March 23, 2006 by J.T. Kauffman
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GuitarFreaks V & DrumMania V breaks top 10
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For the first time in recent memory, a BEMANI title has appeared in the top 10 sales chart in Famitsu magazine, and it isn't the game that you'd expect: GuitarFreaks V & DrumMania V was number 9 this week with 17,520 units sold. The game performed well amidst the competition that included the release of SquareEnix's blockbuster Final Fantasy XII (which moved 1,764,266 copies) and the continued success of many of Nintendo's DS games such as Animal Crossing and Brain Training. In comparison, first week sales for Pop'n Music 12 were 13,153. Needless to say, this is very promising for the continued support of the GFDM series on consoles.
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Thursday, March 23, 2006 by J.T. Kauffman
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