2020

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2020

As in all other walks of life, 2020 in BEMANI was defined heavily by the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the circumstances making public arcade gaming undesirable and even dangerous to vulnerable people, all updates were suspended during the peak of the pandemic. Instead, KONAMI began to focus on releases for the home market, with no fewer than four new PC releases for BEMANI games (the updated beatmania IIDX INFINITAS, pop'n music Lively, コナステ GITADORA, and コナステ ノスタルジア) announced this year.

January

• January 30th: beatmania IIDX 27 HEROIC VERSE LIGHTNING MODEL is released in North America exclusively through ROUND1. This marks the first commercially released version of beatmania IIDX in North America.

February

• February 1st - 8th: The 9th KONAMI Arcade Championship for BEMANI games was held in esports GINZA studio and at JAEPO 2020. Non-BEMANI games had their final rounds scheduled for February 22nd to 24th; however, they were postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak [1].
• February 7th - 8th: jubeat (2020) and NEW pop'n music Welcome to Wonderland! are shown off at JAEPO 2020 for the first and only time. Both games would be quietly cancelled by the end of the year.
• February 25th: Kazuhisa Hashimoto, a KONAMI employee who was the inventor of the KONAMI code (up up down down left right left right B A start) used in various KONAMI (and non-KONAMI) games - including BEMANI titles - dies at 61.

March

• March 4th: beatmania IIDX 20th Anniversary Tribute BEST is released.
• March 18th:
  • beatmania IIDX 27 HEROIC VERSE Original Soundtrack is released.
  • Coconatsu's third mini-album, ハレ トキドキ メランコリック, is released.
  • Blanc Bunny Bandit's second album, 共鳴性白染自由主義, is released.

April

• April 1st: Due to rising fears of COVID-19 in Japan, KONAMI suspends all updates to its arcade BEMANI titles after April 1st for two months, besides daily bonuses and weekly rankings for beatmania IIDX 27 HEROIC VERSE and pop'n music peace. The ending dates of all currently ongoing in-game events were postponed as well.
  • DANCERUSH STARDOM was the first arcade BEMANI game to resume events, with the announcement of the DANCERUSH STARDOM 炎のDANCE合宿～2020SPRING～ event, which began June 1st, 2020.

May

• May 7th: The franchise-wide いちかのBEMANI超じゃんけん大会2020 event is started, the event is held exclusively on the e-amusement website.
• May 14th: DanceDanceRevolution V started its open alpha test.

June

• June 10th: BEMANI ULTIMATE REMIXes, a ten song album of BEMANI tunes remixed by different artists, appears exclusively on beatmania IIDX ULTIMATE MOBILE.

July

• July 1st: DanceDanceRevolution A20 PLUS is released for 20th anniversary cabinets.
• July 6th: DanceDanceRevolution A20 PLUS is released for other cabinets.
• July 15th:
  • GITADORA Matixx Original Soundtrack and GITADORA EXCHAIN Original Soundtrack albums are released.
  • BEMANI 8bit collection, an album of chiptune remixes of BEMANI tunes, appears exclusively on beatmania IIDX ULTIMATE MOBILE.
• July 29th: jubeat festo Original Soundtrack album is released.

August

• August 4th: コナステ GITADORA started its open alpha test.
• August 5th: a heavily upgraded version of beatmania IIDX INFINITAS under the same name is released.
• August 13th: BEMANI曲をバンドで演奏してみた, an album of band covers of BEMANI tunes, appears exclusively on beatmania IIDX ULTIMATE MOBILE.
• August 19th: NOSTALGIA Music Collection ～Op.1～ and NOSTALGIA Music Collection ～Op.2～ albums are released.

September

• September 7th: pop'n music Lively started its open beta test.

October

• October 19th: コナステ ノスタルジア Op.3 started its open alpha test.
• October 28th: beatmania IIDX 28 BISTROVER is released.

November

• November 5th: pop'n music Lively is released.

December

• December 9th: pop'n music 解明リドルズ is released.
• December 16th: コナステ GITADORA is released.
• Unknown date: Tatsuya Mizuno leaves KONAMI.