On August 13, Round 1 USA announced via their Twitter account that their Puente Hills Mall, CA location was now home to two head-to-head NESiCA X Live cabinets, which is a huge move for the US industry.
Over the past few months we have seen an increase in interest from US location operators, such as Round 1 USA and Dave & Buster's, in bringing a myriad of Japanese game titles to the US market for testing and it looks like the idea has now attracted interest in the Japanese companies too.
NESiCA x Live is the system that hosts the Blazblue and Persona franchises, but also features games like Arcana Heart and Ultra Street Fighter IV. You can see the
full NESiCA game list online.
There is no word yet as to whether or not these cabinets will make it into any other Round 1 locations and no word yet as to whether or not the US will get game releases at the same time as Japan - if they do that means they will unlikely to be translated to English, which may make it difficult for many players (especially casual players). There is also no word on whether the games will undergo any language translation or not as of yet.
More news to come as the story develops.
