Oh Google Images, you never fail me

While we’ve all seen a few songs replicated across several rhythm games in the past like Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” and Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” I think this is the first time that two games in the genre have shared so many songs between them. And of course, these eyesores are made all the more glaring by their close release dates and obvious competitive aims. The full list is after the cut.

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Not keen on just outdoing Konami on Guitar and Drum games, Activision has officially announced “DJ Hero” to fully annihilate japanese rhythm games from the face of the earth (look out, DDR!). It has been in development for nearly two years (since shortly before Activision acquired the Guitar Hero license) and should be out next summer, possibly with the ability to face off against Guitar Hero players. I really have no clue what to think of this. So far, the soundtrack is all mash-ups, and the controller is basically a Beatmania pad, except cut down to three buttons and an SFX switch added. It could go either way at this point, so keep watching for more details.

[Kotaku]

Sporting a frighteningly garish color-scheme, Konami’s new Beat’n Groovy is set to deliver a scaled-down version of the complicated and often expensive Pop’n Music experience in a more affordable and simple XBLA game. The game uses five buttons rather than nine, and you use the standard 360 controller to play. And yes, the game is explicitly marketed for the US audience (no word on JP/EU release).

As of now this information is coming from an anonymous source through bemanistyle, so we won’t know about release dates or pricing for a while. However, there is already some very good news about the tracklist. Some artists already listed are good-cool, DJ Taka, Ryu, and Orange Lounge, making for a star-studded line-up of bemani favorites. I was so relieved when I didn’t see “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” on the tracklist (even Samba de Amigo is going to have it. Ugh).

[bemanistyle.com]

The 16th edition in the venerated beatmaniaIIDX series of rhythm games is hitting test locations in Japanese arcades from June 25th to July 1st, sporting this adorable new logo. As you can see, they’re really playing up the pink/girly theme in this mix for whatever reason, and that extends to the interface as well.

Many of the new songs here come from well-loved familiar faces of the Bemani stable, including L.E.D., good-cool, Zektbach, and TAKA. Some other good news is that the machines feature shiny new turntables which are supposedly more responsive than their predecessors.

[bemanistyle.com]