First time here and I'm kinda disappointed that it's because of such a massive complaint.

So, DDR crew, felt like cheaping out on us, your loyal fans? Didn't think it was important to include third party dance mat support in your DDR HP2? Expecially those that worked just fine with DDR Hottest Party 1 for the Wii? I happen to only own the 2 installment of the series, played the first one at a friend's place by bringing my third party mat with me. I liked the game so I bought the second one and I want to play it with my girlfriend and what do I discover after plugging my 2 mats in?

3rd party ddr mat is recognized but no matter what I press on it, it doesn't register with the game. Official mat works just fine. I did some tests with my 3rd party mat over at the dude who has DDR HP1 and it still works just fine. DDR HP2 lacks what its predecessor had, ie a PARTY GAME feature!

So we buy the game, get one mat along with it. Fine, we can play single. But DDR is really just a great game for parties with a few friends. How could you not know that??? Was this omission deliberate? Were you just too freakin' lazy to even debug this issue? Did you even know about it? If you didn't, open your eyes wide 'cause the internet is rumbling with complaints all over Amazon and Gamefaqs, among other websites.

Does Konami plan on issuing replacement discs that DO support 3rd party mats? Or are we just supposed to act like good little sheep and take it up the keyster with a smile on our face?

Hi Tabion,

I've just bought a DDR hotest party II, and me too, I buy a 3rd party mats and no one was working. I try the intec wired dance pad, nothing, I return to the store twice to exchange the mats thinkind that is broken. I also buy another one from a different company, i-con wireless dance pad and this one doesn't work too.

So I hope konami will answer you and will find a solution!!

I put a review on Amazon (I figure most people look there) saying that there is no third party support.  Push your cause by adding your own review there (or elsewhere)!  Perhaps (though to be honest, I'm doubtful) if enough people bash this lack-of-feature and complain, they'll actually issue a fix for it. 

Official responses from Konami when I complained:

================== 

Dear Konami Customer,

Thank you for contacting Konami Customer Support.  Unfortunately, we do not
have the answer you seek as it is up to the third party dance mat
manufacturers to test their mat with our game. We do not test our game with
any mat other than the official Konami dance mat. I suggest contacting the
third part dance mat manufacturer.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Regards,
KDE-US, Customer Support
support@konami.com
Hours of Operation: Mon-Fri 9am PST to 5:30pm

================ 

Our Solution:

Dear Konami Customer,

Thank you for contacting Konami Support.

We would like to inform you that whilst we recommend using Konami Brand Dance mats, we suggest contacting your mat manufacturer for support and compatibility issues as we cannot guaranty full support of third party dance mats.

===============

I bought two and returned them thinking my Wii was broken.

God, original Konami mats are impossible to find unbundled + most stores stock up on the cheaper 3rd party mats.

Sadly, it is impossible to find Konami original pads in stores... there are compatible 3^rd party pads arriving (you can always look for pads listed under the HP2 sections on popular DDR Game websites).

 My "Super Sensitive Super Deluxe Premium Edition Dance Pad" (catchy name, eh? but so comfy on the feet, hmmm, soft foam...) don't work on HP2 which is upsetting as there will be no group plays anymore. 

My multi-platform pad which works on the PS2 and Wii HP1 & 2 comes with a 4-in-1 control box and works perfectly. In fact, the timings on HP2 are sharper than on HP1.  

Does anyone know if peripherals on the Wii have ID tags? If could be feasible that HP2 is looking for a Wii ID on the pad and does not recognize a GameCube tag. Device input timings are different for Wii and GameCube peripherals and backward compatibility can only go so far. The HP2 timing synchs are sharper on HP2. Of course, there may be no ID at all and it is just a Wii vs. GameCube peripheral frequency issue that the Konami team can't detect or work around. Who knows? It would make economic sense for Konami to support GameCube pads for HP1 at that time as there were lots of GameCube compliant 3rd party pads which were then sold as Wii compatible. Moving forward with the franchise Konami may have just decided to bite the bullet and move to ‘Wii pads’ for HP2 and the future. Anyhow, just a theory... Anyone know better? 

The sad thing about it is offering 3^rd party support or not, people can’t afford to buy new pads. Sales may take a hit and all Wii users want to see more DDR either HP3 or another DDR IP for the platform. 

Peace, 

Knight

Does the HP1 bundle mat work for HP2?

I actually think that the failure to recognize 3rd party mats was a mistake on the part of Konami, but of course I don't really know.  They altered the inputs for the hand motions so now you can just push the buttons on the hands as well as shaking the sucker (I don't think you could do this in HP1, but I wouldn't know since I usually turn the hand markers off anyway), and so they had to adjust how they received inputs from the controllers. . . and perhaps "broke" something in the process.  Since they only test with the Konami-branded mats, it wouldn't come up.   This is why the game recognizes you plugging in a 3rd party dance mat, but just gets confused on accepting the inputs and fails there.

Though you'd think that when the 3rd parties made their mats, they would have it send the exact same signals and such.  Beats me.  I'm just guessing.

Anyway, the HP1 mat does work on HP2.  Konami-branded mats work, but they're soft mats. . .

As for high-end pads, I don't have any RedOctane mats; my BlueShark doesn't work, and I don't know about Cobalt Flux mats, either.  Disappointing, since I have three BlueShark pads (I'm a bit of a nut) and am hoping that instead of releasing a HP2-compatible mat, they can release a little control box to convert my existing ones to HP2-compatible ones. . .

Don't know why this wouldn't work. The 3rd-party pads I have and the official Konami pads act exactly the same.

I'm new to DDR and was planing to buy Hottest Party 2 for my gf for Xmas but the lack of support for 3rd party mats is ridiculous.... I looked around and I can't find any official konami mats in stores. A few official konami mats from HP1 are available on ebay but they sell for the same price as the full bundled HP2 in stores. I don't want to have to buy 2 bundle kits simply for the mats.

You can buy Konami pads direct from Konami at their website (though it's out of stock right now).  Some third-party pads do work (though AFAIK none of the "good" ones); you can check the discussion thread on the product page at Amazon as there is a list of working/nonworking mats there.  Probably not complete, but it has a few.

Found a Konami official pad on amazon.com. Shipping it to Canada wasn't cheap but overall it's about the same price as buying it on Konami.com

 The only 3rd party pads available in stores in my city are Intec and they do not work.

OK, I'm very ****ed about this, and so are my kids. They play DDR on their friends' XBoxes all the time so obviously we need to have it at our house too. I go and buy them the latest game plus extra mat and what happens? 2nd mat doesn't work. This is NOT an issue with 3rd parties, it's an issue with Konami shutting 3rd parties out of their games. There is absolutely NO valid reason to change the controller API or whatever they did when creating DDR2 (the essential difference being a couple of new game modes and obviously new songs). This is ******it and from now on I'm taking my business elsewhere.

BTW, I looked. The ONLY mat accessory available (and let me repeat: I LOOKED) was the intec brand.

For what it's worth, the PS2->GC converter that I finally found that worked properly actually works just fine with HP2.  (It's here if anyone's interested: Amazon) The only problem is that Dance Play can't be turned off, so we have to be extra careful around the corner buttons.

Since very one has been having this problem I am proud to say I have a solution.

DANCE_ALL_NIGHT Wii dANCE MAT ADAPTORS

Use your 3rd Party Dance mats dont throw them away.

The adaptor has been tested to work on 3rd Party Dance Mats.

If anyone is intrested please let me know.

DANCE_ALL_NIGHT how does it work?

There is now a box sticker on the gamestop brand of pad that says to sign up on their website for a free adaptor.  I signed up for mine.

what is the DANCE_ALL_NIGHt? can i get it?

Does anybody know an actual store that provides the first party dance pad for the game. I would probably get the adaptor, but I might as well play it the safe way. Though its a big disapointment that this game doesn't allow third party pads. I wouldn't mind this if first party Konami pads were not so hard to find in stores. And I don' trust online. They posted a picture of the first party Konami pad and I wind up getting a third party pad which (OMG suprise) didn't even work. Now I lost money trying to return the pad thanks to shipping and handling.