Moose, I know the exact person from within Betson that broke the news on DDR Freak that e-Amuse was getting scrapped here (as a matter of fact, I met him a year and a half ago in a convention in NYC, I still have his card BTW), and his hands were tied in terms of making that call, since he was only the messenger. He said that many of his superiors in his company responsible for making that decision were being driven by the following counterpoints: money in the form of owners unable to afford the card readers, monthly subscription fes, and difficulties in selling e-Amuse cards, Broadband availability since most other online-based arcade games face this massive impediment in trying to get connected in its placed location, and most importantly, its overall feasibility since a good number of these machines will be in casual places like theatres and bowling alleys, defeating any chance of having enough patrons to fully utilize this service.
Looks like TGLMaxX has every reason to be ****ed off at Konami's ineptness regarding this situation. I mean, if they really cared about the American DDR arcade scene, they would of reigned in on Betson's gross malfeasance by now and a) forced them to comply with their demands on offering e-Amuse hardware for sale or b) nullify their contract and seek another distributor more professional to honor and execute the duties of a contract. I know for a fact that lots of miscommunication exists between here and Konami of Japan, which results in one hand not talking to the other, and a lot of mixed info gets sent between bases of operation (i.e. the Memory Card Slot fiasco in SN where Konami America were led to believe that they were coming out only to have Konami Japan refute that info with a valid explaination later on). In other words, we have no explaination from Konami Japan as to how they're gonna resolve this matter, and that's what upsets me and the rest of the community in general, not even a simple one line statement statement that they're looking into the matter.
AgoraPerry, I can understand that the higher-ups are feeling upset at the current e-Amuse situation. However, them feeling upset is one thing, but not doing anything about it while leaving the arcade players in the dark is something else, since their bottom line is at stake here. It's getting to the point where if nothing ever gets done, we'll have no choice but to convince our local arcade owners not to get SN2 or to import the Japanese version, just like the good old days, and since most places with DDR have an ITG2 machine, we'll just play the unlocks off our USB drives. I just hope that at least a Konami Japan official explains some plan of action to fix this, anything. Lemme ask you something: can you, using your sources within Konami get one of them to issue some sort of official statement, anything straight from the horse's mouth that can calm down the rest of the "frustrated" players, which will demonstrate that Konami does indeed care about the arcade scene here?
Personally, if Konami really wants e-Amuse to take off here, they really have to be flexible regarding the connection requirements, since for starters, they officially want a static IP ADSL connection, at least that's how they do it in Japan. It seems that arcades not residing within a 10,000 ft. radius of DSL provider are out of luck. So I guess they have to loosen this up and also allow Cable modem connections and T1 lines, as well as Wi-Fi bridge compatibility. However, we won't know what the official requirements are until card readers are up for sale here anyways, so it's best to take what I just said about requirements with a grain of salt.
