It’s unusual for us to have a specific release date for arcade games here in the West – often times games will just ship without public notice until they just appear on location. Fortunately for today’s quick story, the manufacturer announced in advance when they would have their latest effort out.
Since that day is January 12th, that means that Bandai Namco Amusements has launched their major content update to Maximum Tune 5, 5DX+. Although to clarify something – the upgrade kits actually shipped out yesterday, but today marks the day where the network allows the kits to operate. I jumped on the upgrade opportunity for one of my locations that has a pair of MT5s, and my kit was shipped out yesterday. As soon as I have it on-hand, I’ll go live on YouTube with an unboxing, so stay tuned to the different Arcade Heroes social media channels for that announcement. Until then, here’s the game as seen at IAAPA 2021; If you missed out on the original unboxing & installation of the game, click here to watch that.
MT5 was released back in 2017 and this update would have come along sooner if not for the pandemic, but overall it’s “better late than never.” The update adds 24 new licensed vehicles to the mix, including certain models from Lamborghini and Acura; 4 new courses; New music; New dress-up parts; Additions to the Japan Challenge mode and more.
As another note, yes, there is still a monthly network fee of $75 per seat; That charge went in part towards helping cover the costs of development (which included localization and licensing – From the numbers I heard at IAAPA, this was nowhere near a cheap update to develop). For the moment, this is just available as a kit, however, if you are interested in adding either a duo or a quad-setup of MT5DX+ games to your location, orders are being taken now for said dedicated models. Dedicated units should begin shipping out next month, along with Pac-Man Battle Royale Chompionship.
There is one odd caveat with data transferring that was posted to the North American Maximum Tune Fans Facebook group. As was explained to me: “Players will be able to move data at any time in the first year I believe. The only issue is if the location decided to delay upgrading – any new data the player creates on non-updated cards / machines, will not transfer because the new server will not recognize data created after the 12th.” In other words, if your location still has a “vanilla” MT5 cabinet, they have a year to update to 5DX+, otherwise there will be issues with player data. You can transfer your data at any 5DX+ cabinet, so it’s better to do that sooner rather than later; You also don’t want to go and play MT5 after doing the transfer as data created there won’t transfer; Just stick to 5DX+.
What are your thoughts on this new update?
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