There's a timeline, and some points contradict what we've got on the wiki. For example, Harmony says Periscope came out in 1965. We're saying 1966... but our references are much newer than Harmony. I'm inclined to think the more modern books are wrong - are the more modern books wrong? Also a 1977 Breakout clone called "Rainbow Block" (レインボー ・ブロック) - there's no evidence online of this ever having existed.
That timeline seems to be making the big claim that Rodeo was the industry's first pinball machine to use solid state microprocessors. It wasn't, as one or two do predate it - but it certainly was among the earliest ones. We are, however, looking at what is the first ever UFO Catcher patent here, filed by Tomoji Miyamoto: The first generation machines aren't often seen now, with their design not truly perfected yet. I did read somewhere that they apparently even caused some injuries, though I'm yet to take that with more than a grain of salt (people also claim that an R360 outright killed someone). Always nice to see more high-quality photos from Ikebukuro GiGO's earlier days surface too - one of the much wilder initial exterior facade from a Shotenkenchiku book turned up before, but this is all far better than those previously seen in the Game Machine coverage. Said coverage also gives out a different opening date to Sega's, further investigation may be needed there.
On the subject of arcades, it also lists Koutou Tsutomu Tenchi Game Ba (江東務天地ゲーム場) and Hibiya Gun Corner (日比谷ガンコーナー) as venues Sega opened in June 1960. Which is very early. Hibiya Gun Corner actually turns up some results on Google so may be possible to find.
As far as I'm currently aware those were both opened by Rosen Enterprises, but since the Nihon Goraku Bussan merger Sega has historically treated them as theirs on some occasions. In recent years they've stopped doing that to instead say 1965 was the start of their operations business, which seems more accurate, however seeing as those locations were indeed under them after that point in time, Retro still probably needs pages.
Other things we didn't know about, just for completion's sake: - New Skill Diga (ニュースキル・ディガ), a crane game from 1980. We knew of the earlier Skill Diga, Super Skill Diga and Group Skill Diga machines, but not one this late. - The DP-11 from April 1982. It's a change machine (or dispenser) - we have other change machines but not that one. - Super Derby (スーパーダービー) from December 1984. Though we could probably guess that existed since we have a Super Derby II page.
Oh hey thanks for reminding me about change machines, I posted some pictures of a DP-24000 that I came across some months back, as well as a Baby UFO I forgot I found.
GONGS Looks like an arcade version of Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots. I'm not sure if this was released(?) From Amusement Machine Show 1993, alongside early Daytona, early "Virtua Fighters" (with Shiba!) and, new to me, Star Wars Arcade before it got a cabinet.
It's not obvious from the photos available, but those early versions of "Virtua Fighters" had readers that let players buff their chosen characters with random product barcodes. Apparently a Gogo no Kocha was the barcode to beat. Star Wars Arcade did have a cabinet at that point - although it never made any other appearances, as far as I know. Namco must have been taking some notes, as the later Star Wars Battle Pod bears more than a faint resemblance. And we've been over this on here already, but Sega World Yamanakako is notable for being a stone's throw away from Sega's old company resort, which unsurprisingly seems to have some coverage alongside the "Around the AM" page.
I actually thought the previous issue like this was a bit better - because all of the new hires were profiled with photos and brief nuggets of info, you would get fun stuff e.g. this one with Shinichi Ogasawara. (He's dressed in what looks like some sort of low rent Game Center Arashi cosplay, for some reason, and cites a 1993 feature from long-gone British music paper Melody Maker about "video games killing rock n' roll" - yes, really) The back page "Around the AM" is of particular interest once again, as it's about Sega World Shizuoka this time - well over a year after first opening in September 1991, as Japan's largest game centre up to that point. What had changed since? It seems to have acquired a Cyber Dome some time after that opening, as all of the initial press about it available in the likes of Game Machine doesn't seem to note its existence. This likely took the place of the venue's CCD Cart, another very early attraction made just as Sega was ramping up research and development teams like AM5 for the advent of Joypolis. Neither are well documented, but at least Cyber Dome has some footage.
It's one of those cases where it's probably super interesting, but it needs translating first Here's a bit. The lad between "Sonic with a neck" and "lucha libre with microphone" is apparently Yoshiyasu Furukawa, Japan's best Sonic 2 player, as decided at the "Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Zenkoku Senshuken Taikai" (ソニック・サ・ヘッジホッグ2 全国選手権大会), or "national championships" for us gaijins. Guess you got a coin for taking part. Of course, the true master of Sonic 2 would know... it's not really geared up for tournament play. I mean yes, there's a two player mode, but... Tails spawns behind Sonic, so is always at a disadvantage. That and it's a subset of the full game and the layouts were altered for (what we presume are) performance reasons. I guess you could do a score attack for single player but that's frought with issues.
Those coins are always up for sale on YAJ/Mercari, I've been meaning to pick one up eventually. Lucha libre there is wearing the Sonic 2 "超音速アクションキャンペーン" (Supersonic Action Campaign) hoodie, one of which I ave in my collection:
To mark Virtual On's recent anniversary, Juro Watari shared a couple of photos from the 1996 edition of Harmony where it was the cover star:
In more "old Sega personnel casually tweet out issues of Harmony whenever they're somewhat relevant" news: Yosuke Okunari just posted this. Which completely messes up the current understanding of how long the magazine lasted, as it was previously thought that it ended in 1999 with this edition. Together, they do seem to suggest that issues definitely shifted to being published seasonally - which they may well have already been earlier in its history. (Shame on Okunari though, for carelessly obscuring part of the cover with the Samba maraca snacks that Sega have done as one of several themed foods in their canteen to celebrate their 'anniversary' this year. Does he really not realise there's someone out there adding dodgy croppings of others to an unofficial wiki????)
