2003

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2003

2002 saw the end of beatmania, and the hibernation of the arcade DanceDanceRevolution series for three more years in Japan. For the second year in a row, KONAMI introduced no new BEMANI series. In fact, in the entirety of 2003, only six arcade BEMANI titles came out: two GUITARFREAKS / drummania titles, one new beatmania IIDX game, and a new pop'n music arcade title. And with the exceptions of pop'n music Best Hits!, pop'n music 8 CS, and KEYBOARDMANIA Yamaha Edition, all CS BEMANI titles in 2003 were exclusively DanceDanceRevolution related.

beatmania IIDX finally got an upgrade to PC hardware with beatmania IIDX 9th style, resulting in higher resolution graphics, no more blanked out videos during gameplay, and a lot of new songs and revivals: 60 new songs and 28 revivals. Unfortunately, it came with a price; the PC hardware was unreliable. Many machines crashed when attempting to run ONE MORE EXTRA STAGE song quasar, and General Relativity had a glitch when it would used the timing windows of the previous song, resulting in no timing windows at all and causing the player to fail. KONAMI never patched 9th style during its run, but fortunately the following game fixed all these problems.

While no new CS beatmania IIDX game came out in 2003, KONAMI did announce on September 27th on making a home version of beatmania IIDX 7th style if demand allowed it. On Christmas 2003, KONAMI confirmed a home version of 7th style would be made, and it was released the following year, continuing the CS beatmania IIDX series once more until 2009.

GUITARFREAKS and drummania had the biggest amount of exposure this year of the arcade BEMANI scene with GUITARFREAKS 9thMIX & drummania 8thMIX and GUITARFREAKS 10thMIX & drummania 9thMIX. Song revivals finally became a thing, though the game still struggled with space limitations. In the latter game's case, revivals were exclusive to those who had e-AMUSEMENT access, leaving coin players unable to play the songs for a couple of years. e-AMUSEMENT was also needed to access ee'MALL as well, which will be explained more below.

pop'n music had one new arcade game and two new CS games in 2003. pop'n music 10 was the series's sole new arcade release that year, but it carried a lot of extras and surprises. With 64 new songs added to the main arcade series, 10's song list consisted of KONAMI originals, new CS songs, and several crossovers from the ANIMELO series. But what really set 10 apart from previous entries was the "Pray to the stars" event, where fans could leave feedback for speed mods, new charts for old songs, and even suggestions for songs and collaborations between BEMANI artists. pop'n music 8 CS was a straightforward port of the arcade game with lots of new CS songs, but two of its licenses were missing. pop'n music Best Hits! contained songs from the first six arcade/CS games, plus three new remixes, two new original songs, and a few missing licenses from pop'n music 6. With its small song list of only 54 songs, it went under the radar of most pop'n music fans, and was the only game on PlayStation 2 prior to pop'n music 11 CS that was never re-released.

Ironically, the BEMANI game that got the most exposure in 2003 was the one that was not in the arcades - DanceDanceRevolution. KONAMI released a total of nine new DanceDanceRevolution titles worldwide that year. Japan itself received four games. The first was エアロビクスレボリューション, a fitness software-oriented game that used the DDR mat and featured a "DDR mode", with ~3 minute long songs. Japan also received home ports of DDRMAX2 and EXTREME, the latter holding a then record 111 songs, the most of any CS BEMANI game. Rounding off the year was DanceDanceRevolution Party Collection, a best hits game containing Dancemania licenses and KONAMI originals from the first arcade game to EXTREME, along with five brand-new songs.

North America received DDRMAX2 -DanceDanceRevolution- on the PlayStation 2. While it shared a few songs and the interface from the arcade DDRMAX2, it contained many new songs and licenses, and a few returning classic Dancemania tracks. It also marked the first DanceDanceRevolution game in any region to feature the original music videos for licenses, which eliminated any on-screen dancers. DDRMAX2 also marked the return of playable dancers in the PlayStation 2 DanceDanceRevolution series.

The Xbox also received its own DanceDanceRevolution title that year - DanceDanceRevolution ULTRAMIX. It also marked with its several DDR firsts. It was the first DanceDanceRevolution game not made in Japan (it was made by KONAMI's Hawaii division), the first DDR game to support widescreen, the first in 480p, the first to have DLC song packs (and thus the first game in the series to go online), and lastly the first to allow free playing of songs without setting options. While it only contained 51 songs (4 new licenses, 4 new CS songs, and 7 new BEMANI crossovers), it also contained a few exclusives to the North American DDR series, such as the original AFTER THE GAME OF LOVE and HYPNΦTIC CRISIS, neither of which ever appeared in a North American PS2 DDR title.

Europe also received two of its own PlayStation 2 DDR titles, again under the Dancing Stage name. Unfortunately, both games together don't equal the 69 found in the U.S. DDRMAX2 game. Dancing Stage MegaMiX and Dancing Stage Fever (PlayStation 2) contain only 26 and 29 songs each, are missing the Groove Radar, and the former's licenses only go to a maximum difficulty of 4 unless playing on Double. (The Sony PlayStation port of the latter only contains 15 songs.)

PC fans got their own version of KEYBOARDMANIA this year with KEYBOARDMANIA Yamaha Edition, which was only available bundled with a PORTATONE EZ-250i by Yamaha. Along with 20 KEYBOARDMANIA tunes, the game can play MIDI files using the KM IMPORTER.

And lastly, 2003 introduced to both pop'n music and later GUITARFREAKS / drummania ee'MALL, an arcade game which consists of various little mini-games to play with your e-AMUSEMENT card. The big incentive to play the game was that it allowed one to unlock new songs and BEMANI crossovers for pop'n music 9. A sequel later that year, ee'MALL 2nd avenue, allowed one to unlock songs in both 10 and GUITARFREAKS 10thMIX & drummania 9thMIX. ee'MALL continued until 2006, when KONAMI ended the service.

While 2003 saw a bit of slowdown of the BEMANI scene, 2004 would see a slightly busier year.

January

• January 8th: Hideo Suwa's first album, 卓球道, is released.
• January 22nd: Q-Mex's first and only BEMANI album, THE Q-Mex Collection 〜pop'n music & KEYBOARDMANIA〜 『AROUND THE WORLD』, released.
• Unknown date: Motoaki Furukawa, after over 16 years of service, leaves KONAMI.

February

• February 5th: pop'n music 9 AC ♥ CS pop'n music 7 album released.
• February 27th: pop'n music Best Hits! is released in Japan for the PlayStation 2.

March

• March 13th: エアロビクスレボリューション is released in Japan for the PlayStation 2.
• March 18th: ee'MALL is released to Japanese arcades.
• March 19th: GUITARFREAKS & drummania BEST TRACKS album released. Exclusive to this release are the new KONAMI originals from GUITARFREAKS 8thMIX & drummania 7thMIX power-up ver..
• March 19th: pop'n music Vocal Best 4 album released.
• March 26th: DanceDanceRevolutionEXTREME ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK album released.
• March 29th: pop’n music アーティスト大集合! 3, a concert of various pop'n music songs played live, is held.

April

• April 2nd: GUITARFREAKS 9thMIX & drummania 8thMIX is released to Japanese arcades.
• April 9th: beatmania THE BEST PROMINENT album released.
• April 24th: DDRMAX2 -DanceDanceRevolution 7thMIX- CS is released in Japan for the PlayStation 2.

May

• May 30th: Dancing Stage MegaMiX is released in Europe for the Sony PlayStation 2.

June

• June 4th: GUITARFREAKS 9thMIX & drummania 8thMIX SOUNDTRACKS album released.
• June 18th: hummingbird PARQUETS ～pop'n music Artist Collection～ album released.
• June 25th: beatmania IIDX 9th style is released to Japanese arcades.
  • It marks the first BEMANI game released with the 2003-2013 KONAMI logo.

July

• July 3rd: pop'n music 8 CS is released in Japan for the PlayStation 2.
  • It is the first Japanese released console game to feature the 2003-2013 KONAMI logo.
• July 23rd: KEYBOARDMANIA Yamaha Edition is released for the PC.
• July 31st: まほろまてぃっく 萌っと≠きらきらメイドさん 茸で決まってる～♪なメイドさん (Mahoromatic: Moetto≠kirakira maid-san take de kimatteru~♪na maid-san), a licensed game on the PlayStation 2, is published by KONAMI. It contains a few of the series' songs in a beatmania mini-game, fully compatible with the beatmania controller.

August

• August 6th: pop'n music 10 is released to Japanese arcades.
• August 20th: SASEBO BROTHERS 1st Best ~pop'n music Artist Collection~ album released.

September

• September 18th: beatmania IIDX 9th style Original Soundtrack album released. It is the final BEMANI game soundtrack album released under Konami Music Entertainment, Inc.
• September 18th: Sana's third album, Sana-mode II ~pop'n music & beatmania moments~ , is released.
• September 23rd: DDRMAX2 -DanceDanceRevolution- is released in North America for the Sony PlayStation 2.
• September 27th: KONAMI announces consideration of a home port of beatmania IIDX 7th style if 10,000 questionnaires are filled out. They were by October 22nd.

October

• October 2nd: beatmania IIDX visual works vol.1, a collection of various beatmania IIDX videos released on a DVD, is released.
• October 8th: GUITARFREAKS 10thMIX & drummania 9thMIX is released to Japanese arcades.
• October 9th: DanceDanceRevolution EXTREME CS (Japan) is released in Japan for the PlayStation 2
• October 24th: Dancing Stage Fever is released in Europe for both the Sony PlayStation and the PlayStation 2.
• October 29th: pop'n music 10 AC ♥ CS pop'n music 8 album released. It is the first release under Konami Media Entertainment, Inc., succeeding Konami Music Entertainment, Inc., which was KONAMI's music label from 1999 through 2003.

November

• November 20th: DanceDanceRevolution ULTRAMIX is released in North America for the Xbox, the first BEMANI game made entirely outside of Japan.
• November 27th: KONAMI announces pre-orders for beatmania IIDX 7th style CS were open, but that 20,000 pre-orders would be required for the game to be released.

December

• December 3rd: pop'n music artists X'mas Songs album released.
• December 11th: DanceDanceRevolution Party Collection is released in Japan for the Sony PlayStation 2.
• December 17th: ee'MALL 2nd avenue is released to Japanese arcades.
• December 17th: GUITARFREAKS 10thMIX & drummania 9thMIX Soundtracks album released.
• December 25th: beatmania IIDX 7th style CS officially announced for release the following year.

Unknown date

• Shoichiro Hirata leaves KONAMI.
• Extreme! Dance Live ~in velfarre~ was held in velfarre Roppongi to promote releases of DanceDanceRevolution EXTREME CS (Japan) and DanceDanceRevolution Party Collection, featuring perfomances by NAOKI, U1, dj TAKA, Sota Fujimori, and more.