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 titles came out: two GUITARFREAKS / drummania titles, one new beatmania IIDX game, and a new pop'n music arcade title. And with the exception of pop'n music 8 CS, 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 not very reliable. 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. Unfortunately KONAMI never patched 9th style during its run, but thankfully 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 only had one new arcade game and one new CS game in 2003. pop'n music 10 was the series's sole new arcade release that year, but it carried with it a lot of extras and surprises. With 64 new songs added to the main arcade series, 10's songlist 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.

Ironically, the BEMANI game that got the most exposure in 2003 was the one that wasn't in the arcades - DanceDanceRevolution. KONAMI released a total of 9 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 features a "DDR mode", with ~3 minute long songs. Japan also received home ports DDRMAX2 -DanceDanceRevolution 7thMIX- CS and DanceDanceRevolution EXTREME CS (Japan), the former holding a then record 111 songs, the most of any CS BEMANI game. Round 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 (though they need to be unlocked first through play).

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 ration, the first to go 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 have ever appeared in a North America 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 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 PlayStation port of the latter only contains 16 songs.)

And lastly, 2003 introduced to both pop'n music and later GUITARFREAKS / drummania ee'MALL, an arcade machine 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

February

  • February 5th: pop'n music 9 AC ♥ CS pop'n music 7 album released.

March

April

May

June

July

  • July 3rd: pop'n music 8 CS is released in Japan for the PlayStation 2. It is the first Japanese KONAMI game to feature the current KONAMI logo.

August

September

October

  • 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 Sony 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., succedding 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

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