Comments on: Our Fake Plastic Ancestors

By: Randy

Randy — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:35:00 +0000

There was a old old Atari game called Guitar gods too.
It had ABC’s, and those type of songs on it.
But it was way way before guitar freaks.

By: Adam Williamson

Adam Williamson — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:37:43 +0000

I realize this article’s old as crap, but I found it by Google so I guess others will too.

Just wanted to +1 Dalamar. You write this whole article as if GF/DM were a huge failure, which is kinda funny. It’s a giant, raging success – in its market, which is Asia. There’s millions of players, a massive enthusiast scene, national tournaments (videos of which later come out on DVD), live concerts, the whole thing.

Konami’s approach to the American market is generally to throw whatever they have at it and see if it sticks. If it does, fine (a la DDR). If not, oh well. They don’t put a lot of effort into it. Their primary market is Japan, then the rest of Asia. North America is a very distant third on the list. So they were never going to fuck with GF/DM excessively to try and ‘break’ the American market or something. They just don’t care very much.

In West Coast cities with big Asian populations, GF/DM machines are easy to find and very popular. Here in Vancouver BC there’s six or seven arcades with GF/DM machines, several of which are well maintained, kept up to the latest releases (a new GF/DM ‘mix’ comes out every 12 months or so), and extremely popular.

Just because it’s not that big in the U.S. or on consoles doesn’t make it a failure, guys, and it doesn’t make GH / Rock Band the ‘winner’. Just on the U.S. console market. Try going to Japan and see how many people play GH there…

By: Dalamar

Dalamar — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:37:24 +0000

Guitar Freaks and Drummania are still going strong…in Japan and Korea. Konami never wanted to deal with licesing songs so they have created their own record label for most of the talent in their “Bemani” line (Beatmania, Dance Dance Revolution, Gutiar Freaks, and Drummania). Guitar Freaks is currently at version “V5″ which roughly translates to “16th mix.” Arcades do still carry them, but they have to be pretty specialized since to upgrade the machine to a new version they have to connect it to Konami to install the license. This connection must be from the region the game is licensed for so Arcade owners must have a contact overseas.
I go to Arcade Infinity regularly. They usually get the new versions of GF and DM about 2-3 months after it’s released overseas. It’s in the City of Industry in Southern California (Off the 60 fwy at Fullerton Rd., in the Diamond Plaza). For the PS (Japanese only) you could get GF and GF 2nd mix. 3rd and 4th mix with DM 2nd and 3rd mix repectively were available for the PS2. Then there was a lull until “V” (Changed to get DM and GF using the same version designation), “V2″, “Masterpiece Silver”, and “Masterpiece Gold” were released for PS2 as well.

Happy Strumming!

By: Durand

Durand — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:31:03 +0000

Are you sure Drummania was never released in America? I saw it (or something extremely similar) about 6 years ago in my local mall. Just curious if you could find anymore information. Thanks.

By: J.R.

J.R. — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:32:28 +0000

In San Diego, one of the malls here had DrumMania a few years before Rock Band came out. And I got super addicted. It cost $.75 and the best (most recognizable) song was Living on a Prayer. AND the drum sticks were held together with duct tape, and the cymbals were either broken or you had to hit them so hard it hurt your arm. BUT IT WAS AWESOME.

When Rock Band came out and I finally had a drum set in my own living room, with real songs, and no pay-per-play… it was like Christmas and Easter combined.

Off the subject: This is a great blog. Please keep up the excellent articles! I especially liked your opinions of the Stage Kit, and the wireless microphone. Thanks!!