It is with great sadness and remorse that we have to inform you that the unofficial network supporting the latest releases of Bemani games outside of Asia will be closing down at 0:00 GMT this Monday morning (9th of March 2015).
The decision was announced on the evening of Friday the 6th after the maintainers of the “Programmed World” network received a Cease-and-Desist letter by Konami’s legal division earlier that day, threatening legal action unless the network was shut down by the end of the weekend. Presumably, Konami decided on this type of reaction because of the fact that Programmed World setups were running in arcades and making their owners money through the help of software and licensed songs which were infringing on their creators’ copyrights. Another factor that might’ve contributed to this decision would be the rapid expansion of Round 1 locations throughout the U.S., which carry Konami-approved machines connecting to the official eAmusement network.
Due to this recent turn of events, all Bemani locations within Europe, including the two closest to the BeNeLux states (Astro City Southend and ArcadeStreet Paris) will be switching their machines off this weekend.
Leave a Reply