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1999

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BEMANI Timeline
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1999

1999 was a very big year for music games in general. Following the success of beatmania, DanceDanceRevolution, and pop'n music, several video game developers started releasing their own music games. ANDAMIRO's Pump It Up and Amuse World's EZ2DJ were hitting Korean arcades, and even established game series made before beatmania became big got sequels: NanaOn-Sha's UmJammer Lammy was a huge hit, combining the engine of its predecessor PaRappa the Rapper with more freeform guitar licks, and Enix's Bust-A-Move 2 was hitting shelves in early 1999. NAMCO's cult hit Pacapaca Passion received a PlayStation port, as well as an upgraded version (Special) and a sequel. The PlayStation also received several of its own rhythm games - Warashi's Le Concert ff and Le Concert pp took it a step forward and had you controlling an entire orchestra. NanaOn-Sha also released the cult classic vib-ribbon, which used an unique, scribbled black and white aesthetic and had your character literally changing as you moved around. The end of 1999 also saw SEGA step into the music game genre with Compile's Puyo Puyo DA! and Sonic Team's Samba de Amigo. It would be far from the last rhythm games from the company.

KONAMI itself was pretty busy, too. In addition to three new arcade beatmania titles, six new DanceDanceRevolution arcade titles, and two new pop'n music arcade titles, KONAMI also introduced two brand-new games: GUITARFREAKS and drummania. Unlike their previous game series, though, these games originally featured music from almost entirely veteran KONAMI music composers. Original sound director Mutsuhiko Izumi's hard rock sound from over 20 years of previous music experience helped develop a very rich sound the series has to this day. Together with veteran Yoshihiko Koezuka's more mellow 80s sound, veteran Jimmy Weckl's jazz, and newcomers Hideyuki Ono's ska inspired sound and Toshio Sakurai's more rock pop sound, GUITARFREAKS and drummania quickly became hits, the former receiving a PlayStation port by the end of the year.

But perhaps the biggest of the new games released that year was, ironically, a spin-off game; beatmania IIDX. beatmania IIDX added two new buttons to the overall game design, and also re-positioned the 1P turntable to the left. But it also boasts something the original beatmania never had; full-motion video. For the first time, licensed tracks from the likes of m-flo and other artists featured their original videos. This game also marked the debuts of the hugely popular BEMANI artists Takayuki Ishikawa (dj TAKA) and Takehiko Fujii (SLAKE). Meanwhile, the original series continued on with beatmania 4thMIX -the beat goes on-, which would introduce another staple BEMANI artist, Toshiyuki Kakuta (L.E.D.). Fujii in-particular went on to sound direct near every beatmania game from 1999 onward, while Ishikawa stayed on board with beatmania IIDX, inviting friends of his like Taku Sakakibara (TaQ) and Osamu Kubota to help make a rich, more electronic counterpart to the more hip-hop/dance/techno tone that the original beatmania kept with Fujii. An append release, substream, would also introduce Goli Matsumoto, who would go on to decorate almost every single style of beatmania IIDX with his artwork. All of these men would go on to play a major role in the future of beatmania.

beatmania wasn't the only game with a spin-off, though. DanceDanceRevolution had the Solo BASS MIX and Solo 2000 games, which transformed the usual four-panel style of DDR on its head. Now you had two extra arrows on the top left and right to work with, resulting in a far more difficult game overall. Both of these games contained almost completely brand-new songs never before in the series.

pop'n music itself had pop'n stage, which was a bit like Pump-It-Up, but keysounded. This game also had an almost completely original songlist, and near all of its songs would pop up in the main series of pop'n music titles. It even got an upgrade later that year known as pop'n stage ex, which added a new difficulty level, a few songs from the then current pop'n music 3, and two brand-new songs. One of the new songs, WE TWO ARE ONE, introduced Seiya Murai to BEMANI. Murai would be for years after one of the biggest names in pop'n music, and also a key staff member of KEYBOARDMANIA starting the following year.

The Sony PlayStation became the new home for most of these new BEMANI arcade releases. DanceDanceRevolution games became huge hits on the system, and the beatmania games continued to sell quite well. KONAMI even dabbled with the Game Boy with their beatmania games, producing three games in all.

KONAMI knew it couldn't keep their music games to just Japan and Korea at this point, so they started releasing some of their arcade games overseas in North America as well. Unfortunately, the American arcade market at the time wasn't as receptive as they would be just a couple of years later to rhythm games. There were two exceptions, though. The first was Dancing Stage, an European arcade game loosely based on DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX that encouraged KONAMI to release a sequel the following year. The other was hiphopmania completeMIX, a North American version of beatmania completeMIX that also managed a year later to get a sequel. (Unfortunately the cabinet is quite hard to find, even back then.)   Lastly, 1999 also marked an extremely important milestone. KONAMI started adapting the current BEMANI name for their music games, the name itself taken from their first game series beatmania.

So overall 1999 was a very big year for KONAMI's BEMANI series. But 2000 would make 1999 look like nothing happened at all.

January

  • January 19th: beatmania completeMIX, a compilation game of the first three beatmania arcade games, is released to Japanese arcades.
  • January 29th: DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX is released to Japanese arcades.
  • January 31st: beatmania Special CD album is released. It contains several songs from the first three beatmania arcade games, coming free with the beatmania PRESS MIX book KONAMI released to promote beatmania.

February

March

  • March 11th: beatmania GB is released in Japan for Nintendo's Game Boy Color.
  • March 18th: GUITAR FREAKS ORIGINAL GAME SOUNDTRACK album released.
  • March 19th: pop'n music 2 is released to Japanese arcades.
  • March 26th: pop'n music original soundtrack album released.

April

  • April 10th: DanceDanceRevolution CS (Japan) is released in Japan for the Sony PlayStation.
  • April 16th: Konami Game Music Now 1999 album released. It exclusively contains the new songs from beatmania GB on it, along with various beatmania, DanceDanceRevolution, GUITARFREAKS, and pop'n music songs among other KONAMI game franchises.
  • April 21st: DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX with beatmania IIDX CLUB VERSiON is released to Japanese arcades. This game combines DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX and beatmania IIDX together to play 13 songs on for synchronized play.
  • April 23rd: beatmania IIDX Original Soundtracks album is released, containing (near) all the KONAMI originals new and old from beatmania IIDX.
  • April 26th: beatmania 4thMIX -the beat goes on- is released to Japanese arcades. Takehiko Fujii assumes the role of sound director. First appearance of Toshiyuki Kakuta and Kouichi Yamazaki.
  • April 28th: beatmania for WonderSwan is released in Japan for the Bandai WonderSwan.
  • April 28th: DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX LINK VERSION is released to Japanese arcades. This version added five new songs and allows you to play any song you wish for any stage, a first in the series.
  • April 28th: Dance Dance Revolution 2nd MIX ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK album released.

May

June

  • June 10th: beatmania GOTTAMIX Original CD, a mini-album of the new songs from beatmania APPEND GOTTAMIX, is released alongside the beatmania GOTTAMIX Consumer Guide book.
  • June 17th: beatmania 4thMIX Original Soundtracks album released.
  • June 20th: Dance Dance Revolution KONAMI ORIGINAL DANCE NUMBERS mini-album released. It contains a few songs from DanceDanceRevolution, and was released with a guide book for DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX.

July

August

September

October

  • October 8th: beatmania ANI-SONGS MIX featuring Dynamic Pro album released. It contains new remixes of various anime licenses. Notable remixers include Hiroshi Watanabe and Yasuhiko Fukuda.
  • October 8th: beatmania ANI-SONGS MIX featuring Tatsunoko Pro album released. It contains remixes of various Tatsunoko Production anime series. Later pop'n music composer CO-PING appears on the album.
  • October 22nd: pop'n music 2 original soundtracks ★ new songs collection album released.
  • October 30th: DanceDanceRevolution 3rdMIX is released to Japanese arcades.

November

December

Unknown

  • Dancing Stage is released to European arcades.
  • Dancing Stage INTERNET R@NKING Version, an enhanced port of Dancing Stage, is released.
  • GUITARFREAKS is released to North American arcades.
  • hiphopmania completeMIX, a North American version of beatmania completeMIX with a few songs removed, is released to North American arcades.
  • pop'n music is released to North American arcades. Several songs are removed, and a few character names were changed.
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