32-Player Gundam

A few posts ago I mentioned Shinjuku Sportsland’s 32-cabinet Gundam setup. Well, here it is.

This is the Gundam Extreme Versus Maxi Boost ON variant of the Gundam Extreme Versus Maxi Boost variant of the Gundam Extreme Versus variant of the Gundam Versus branch of the Gundam arcade games. Bandai Namco maxiboosted it into arcades in 2016, then onto PS4 in July this year.

It’s 2v2 mech battles, tactics coming from defined specialisms in shooting, brawling or defence. Game centres are networked across the country, of course, and your basic format is a PvP online battle. The arcade operator needs to actually limit the machine to local play at setup if you want the option of CPU battles. These machines are all labelled as network mode – no AI battles. So even if it’s your first time at Shinjuku Sportsland Honkan, Fight-Club-style, *you have to fight*.

The numbering Sportsland have put on the cabinets has this as the B side. The other side has two 1-As back-to-backing the 1-Bs, and so on down the row, giving a pair of pairs under each number. The sign over the first cabinet explains: you can hire out a 4-cab set by the hour and play unlimited with your friends. ¥2,400 weekdays; ¥3,000 weekends.

Interesting economics: credits are normally ¥100, so the 4 of you need to play a game every 10 minutes to get your money’s worth. Say 5 mins for each battle, then just some banter, mech and stage select, tea from the machine, piss break, cigarette… if you’re organised and focused on getting the games in then you’re beating the system.

Or so you think, you four grad-jobbers in your first-suits, fragrant from the izakaya. Sportsland have seen you coming. Organised players focused on getting the games in are far better business than slow-moving drunks. This pricing scheme drives profit-boosting customer behaviour while guaranteeing a minimum standard of coin-dropping efficiency – plus it keeps the rows full. And you thought you were getting a deal…

This pic was taken in 2018. Guess things look different these days. You have to wonder whether this kind of game – that you can actually play in the comfort of your own console – will keep people venturing out into germ-ridden arcades.