Battle Gear 3 North America
Turns out Battle Gear 3 did release in the USA and Canada in 2003 with NESYS online support
I recently discovered a cabinet a friend of mine purchased, despite being Japanese was running English software. I initially assumed they had converted it to run the EU Offline build, but I saw something peculiar when it was in attract mode. NO "NESYS" SETUP. CAN'T USE KEY.
I hadn't seen much footage of the EU build but I was 100% sure that game did not have the NESYS features in the EU. Entering the TEST MENU revealed this was BATTLE GEAR3 V2.01A Aug 11 2003 18:37:01. Which seemed strange as I recall the earliest version of Battle Gear 3 Japan we knew of was V2.04J. The ID Taito used to identify these games did not match on the HDD or Dongle either.
(BG3-USA) M9005951A VER.2.00A (the hard drive being a 30.0GB MAXTOR)
BATTLE GEAR 3 B3900068A (the dongle which is likely where it derives 2.01A from)
Talking to some folks we found out this cab likely participated in the 2003-2005 release of Battle Gear 3 in North America. (or Betson sent spare parts to someone who imported a JP cab)
I have dumped the HDD and the Dongle, it is preserved, and to my knowledge nothing like a serial number is derived from the dongle that I am aware of (nothing on the title screen or in test mode)
I was also able to dig up the old url that is long deceased (but you can find information on archive.org still)
http://bg3.betson.com
Through archive.org I was able to compile a list of tempo known through the limited captures we have, so this is not by all means the definitive list of locations that may have had BG3 ONLINE in North America but this is what I have.
CANADA:
Campus Cove Calgary Alberta
Campus Cove Saskatchewan Saskatoon
Campus Cove York U Toronto
Jipolis Markham Ontario
Orbit-1 Markham Ontario
Orbit-2 Markham Ontario
University of Waterloo Ontario
West Edmonton Mall Alberta Calgary
Starburst Coin Machines Etobicoke Ontario (theplaydiumstore)
(Kitchener?)
(Head Office?)
USA:
Betson Showroom -01 Carlstadt NJ
Boomers - Irvine CA
Boomers Redwood CA
FunPlex NJ
Good Times Somerville MA
The Works Wyomissing PA
I've planning to do research on English versions of Battle Gear games, and to my research, NESYS was also available on the Overseas English ROM (V2.0xO) in certain Asia-Pacific countries (to my knowledge, Hong Kong and Malaysia), with server at battlegear3.com.hk (no waybacks, though).
ReplyDeleteMy local Timezone arcade in Bandung, Indonesia used to have English BG3 cabinet (with NESYS disabled, as Battle Gear's NESYS service was never available in Indonesia) until they removed it months ago.
Also, one factor of the US BG3 having different version ID (the Japanese and international English versions have, according to namcops2.cpp on MAME, media ID of M9005793A VER.2.04J/O, while the B3900068A dongle ID was also used for the international English version of BG3 according to a Russian arcade repair forum post) is because of the Honda USA licensing issue. In Side by Side 2 (whose US cabinets I haven't spotted in the wild, at least online) and Battle Gear 1 (distributed by ICE), they had to disable the Honda cars in the respective US ROMs, and Battle Gear 3's bilingual flyers indicate they were planning to do this again - when Taito somehow resolved the Honda Japan/USA licensing thing, they have to recompile the game to add the necessary Japanese model disclaimer. (Then again, US-bound Initial D Arcade Stage cabinets have Honda Japan licensing credits on the cabinet and on marketing flyers, but not in-game itself.)