Made In Asia is a show dedicated to Asian culture and leisure held at Brussels Expo each year. Programme: martial arts, cooking, origami, traditional games, bonsai cultivation, cosplay, karaoke, anime screenings, video game consoles, manga, figurines and clothing shops, ... In previous editions, an important aspect of Japanese culture was not represented: arcade games. This year the doubled exhibition area allowed organizers to fill this gap.

Made In Asia 3 (March 18-20, 2011) occupied the entire Hall 8 and the Patio for a total area of 10,200 sqm. The Creativa was taking place simultaneously in Hall 4. The entrance ticket for any of the two shows gave access to both.

So we were exhibiting there with a booth of 24m in length on which we placed 19 arcade cabinets. Several game genres were represented: fighting, shooting, racing, shoot'em up, sport and puzzle.

Hyper Street Fighter II tournament

On Saturday, an Hyper Street Fighter II tournament was held with many prizes to win provided by Made In Asia, PlayerOne and Arcade Belgium. Organization of the tournament was handled by our friends at Player. Iori won the tournament in style.

BlazBlue Continuum Shift tournament

On Sunday, it was the turn of BlazBlue Continuum Shift and the chance to see the best fighters compete.

Nomax and Esash give the first prize to Nstalkie, a very experienced player.

Watsuki Nobuhiro, author of Rurōni Kenshin, attended the show. He loves arcade fighting games.

Our neighbours of DDR Belgium had a great success with a Japanese DanceDanceRevolution Extreme machine.

Games

• Azumanga-Daioh Puzzle Bobble (Taito)
• BlazBlue Continuum Shift (Arc System Works)
• Border Down (G.rev)
• Cleopatra Fortune Plus (Taito)
• Confidential Mission (Sega)
• Fate/Unlimited Codes (Capcom)
• Fist of the North Star (Sega)
• The House of the Dead III (Sega)
• Hyper Street Fighter II - The Anniversary Edition (Capcom)
• Ikaruga (Treasure)
• Initial D Version 3 (Sega)
• Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (Namco)
• The Maze of the Kings (Sega)
• Melty Blood Act Cadenza Version B2 (Ecole)
• Sega Tetris (Sega)
• Soul Calibur III Arcade Edition (Namco)
• Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection (Namco)
• Virtua Fighter 5 (Sega)
• Virtua Tennis 2 (Sega)

Our stand was full packed the whole weekend with all games being played without interruption. Saturday was the busiest day with queues of people in front of each machine. This proves that arcade games are still very popular not only to nostalgic people but also to the younger generation. To our surprise, many visitors had never had the chance to touch a joystick before (we feel old). Note that Made In Asia 3 has attracted more than 16,000 visitors, which confirms its growing success.

Text / pictures: Sophie & Nomax.
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