Newsbytes: IAAPA 2025 Post-Show Catch Up, Beetlejuice Pinball, Fishing Rod Games Return & More
Welcome to another Newsbytes, the series of posts here on Arcade Heroes that goes over small bytes of news from around the arcade and pinball worlds. It’s been a little while since the last of these, and there’s plenty that has got kind of lost in the shuffle between the trade shows this month, so before we fully start our IAAPA post-mortem, here is a good chance to brush up on what’s been happening (and an early glimpse of what’s to come from that coverage). Think of this as a little stop-gap 
IAAPA 2025 Post-Show Catch Up
As just alluded to, IAAPA 2025 is now over and out, and the blitz of footage from it on the Arcade Heroes YouTube channel is well underway. Coming up soon will be our usual series of posts covering the show company-by-company (divided up into around five or so parts), but for a brief preview of what’s to come, below are a few videos of some of the biggest games to appear there in case you have missed them.
Raw Thrills’ two leading lights were Jackpot Racer and Godzilla Kaiju Wars Deluxe, as previously covered, with the latter easily being the most impressive experience. The changes made to the gameplay to make it more of a true on rails shooter than an attraction really go a long way. This one’s shipping very soon too:
Bandai Namco had the first Stateside chance to play IGS and Baohui’s Speed Rider 4DX outside of location testing. This was the best new motorcycle racer seen at the show; the motion base feels great, the much-touted drift mechanism works pretty well, and the Unreal Engine graphics are fantastic.
Of exA-Arcadia’s various titles, the one with the most recognizable name was of course their arcade release of Hunter X Hunter Nen X Impact, with numerous improvements over the home versions. Head on down to Headlines for a couple more exA updates on future games coming to the platform…
Then one of the main stars of Sega Amusements’ booth was undoubtedly Maimai DX, making its first ever appearance at an IAAPA show. This was popular all week long; something did appear to happen to one of the twin cabinets on the last day of the expo, but the other pair kept working just fine.
Last but not least, it’s worth mentioning that this IAAPA was very packed. So packed that I heard approximately 150-200 different companies were on a waiting list for grabbing a space, and ultimately could not get one in the end. As such, next year will see the show extend to the West Concourse. This isn’t too surprising as in the past, IAAPA had setup a big chunk of the east parking lot with tents and a bunch of other companies, but they haven’t done that since pre-COVID in 2019. However, one or two groups who wanted to attend but missed out still managed to have a presence surrounding the show.
Among those groups who were unable to have their product on-site, but still had it local was Astro Crow Games. Their Throwback! Jai-Alai Heroes could be found nearby over at Arcade Monsters in Orlando, and they even managed to get a few more sales. They also threw their World Jai-Alai League meeting there on Thursday night (where the photo below is from), but I was unable to go and hang out there due to some work obligations that kept me up until 2am (hooray) and sorting videos so I could finish up on Friday. We’ll have more on this one soon, which has changed some since we spoke about it a while ago.
And before I forget to say, I had a great time meeting up with several of our readers and sources; it’s always good to put a face to a screen name. I also appreciate the kind words offered on what we do here, and hope that everyone got home safely. Once again, stay tuned to the site and YouTube channel for even more videos and our full multi-part IAAPA 2025 wrap-up; the latter will likely begin on Monday.
Beetlejuice Pinball
Right before IAAPA started, Spooky Pinball threw back the curtain on their latest creation, Beetlejuice Pinball. This was not at the show, partly because Spooky don’t go to wider amusement industry events (preferring to stick to pinball-focused ones), and also down to how the game pretty much immediately sold out, meaning chances to play it will be few and far between now (besides for those who got one).
It is easy to see why this is so popular with the pinball crowd though, as Spooky truly went to town in packing it full of innovative features, most of all its unique voice activation system (as demoed in the reveal trailer below). It’s too bad that this will have a limited run, as such innovations could certainly help some games and operators on location too. Beetlejuice Pinball will be shipping in early 2026:
Fishing Rod Games Return
Once upon a time in the arcade business, realistic fishing rod controlled games were prolific, pioneered by Sega with Sega Bass Fishing and the like. There’s been plenty of other fishing games since then, largely in the simpler video redemption vein typified by pieces like UNIS’ Pirate’s Hook and Treasure Cove, but rarer are ones using those fully fledged rods (only Namco’s Ace Angler kind of comes to mind there).
One outfit is aiming to change that now though, as a little company called FORTENTS out of South Korea is making a piece using one called Strong Fisher. This was recently shown off at the G-Star 2025, a local gaming industry event out in South Korea, and is going to be released to locations there soon, but apparently there is also some stated intent for it to also come to Japan and even North America someday.
For more information on this, a 4Gamer article has the details, whilst this video shows off some gameplay:
Houston Arcade Expo
Whilst last month had Pinball Expo, this month brought the annual Houston Arcade Expo to fruition for arcade and pinball fans, again just before IAAPA kicked off. The show saw plenty of classic coin-op goodness, along with some console gaming tournaments, live music, vendors, and more; for new titles that appeared there, Multimorphic Pinball had a good presence with their recently-released Portal Pinball (which received a ‘making of’ panel), as well as The Princess Bride and Final Resistance:
Some attendees were also privileged enough to receive an access all areas tour around Barrels of Fun’s manufacturing headquarters, giving a glimpse of Dune and Winchester House Mystery on their production line (the first time they’ve had more than one title being put together, and not the last either). TNT Amusements kindly filmed some of those happenings; Grownup Adjacent also have a video:
Monster Eye 3 Plus
Finally, something that’s been on our radar for a little while but hasn’t been pushed too much until now. Back around September we caught wind that Wahlap were doing a Plus edition of Monster Eye 3, complementing the original ‘environmental’ cabinet release and upright four player Unite version. This effectively takes the latter of those and turns it into a full size motion theater, in the vein of Triotech’s XD Dark Ride or Bandai Namco’s Deadstorm Pirates 4D (albeit without the glasses). It’s been some time since we had one of those; the last probably was the special attraction edition of House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn exclusive to Joypolis. Perhaps we’ll see more again with this? Though there’s been no trade show appearances as yet, Wahlap have slowly been promoting it online, now extending to YouTube:
Headlines
exA-Arcadia Teases New EXA Label Arcade Version Of Run N Gunner Neon Inferno
exA’s Website Also Updated To Say Fallen Angels Revenge Is Coming Next Year
Bandai Namco Expects Wangan Midnight Speed Ignition To Sell 10k Units
Bandai Namco’s Penlalive Goes On Location Test Again In Osaka
Wahlap Tests The New Jubeat Cabinets In China
Japanese Used Tech Store Sells A Gator Panic
Initial D The Arcade Expands Into Indonesia
Star Wars FotE Gets Code 0.87; D&D Gets Code 0.98
Paul Williams’ Funeral Happened Just Before IAAPA
Italian Arcade Industry Pioneer Marino Zaccaria Passes Away – R.I.P.
Visitor Numbers For Japan’s Amusement Expo 2025 Improved
Maybe This Will Exist In Time For A Future IAAPA?
[Home Headlines]
Raw Thrills’ Fast & Furious Arcade Is Now Available For Consoles
Namco’s Tokyo Wars Comes To Hamster Arcade Archives
Valve Announces 3: Steam Machine, Controller, Frame – Whether they are affordable remains to be seen
A Long Trailer For Nintendo’s Metroid Prime 4 – A lot of people were claiming this is the first time that Nintendo has rendered “realistic humans” in a game, but I thought that they did so in Prime 3 and Other M (for what was realistic at the time)
Halo Comes To PlayStation For The First Ever Time – A month out of date, but still
Gamestop Declares The Console Wars Over
That’s it for this Newsbytes; which of today’s stories (e.g. Beetlejuice Pinball) interested you most?
The post Newsbytes: IAAPA 2025 Post-Show Catch Up, Beetlejuice Pinball, Fishing Rod Games Return & More appeared first on Arcade Heroes.
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