Taiko and Mario Kart Arcade Back Online in Japan After ALL.Net Hack, Sega Games Still Down

After a full week of dark screens and “out of order” signs across Japan’s arcades, some of the drums are beating again. Bandai Namco says eight of its games that run on Sega’s ALL.Net network are coming back from today, Sunday 8 November, on a trial basis. Sega’s own games are still offline, with no return date.

https://x.com/allnet_info/status/2119218343618150449

What happened

ALL.Net is the online network behind a huge number of Japanese arcade cabinets, and Aime is the tap-on card system players use to load their scores, ratings and unlocks. Both are run by Sega Fave, the Sega company that handles arcades and toys, and both are used by Bandai Namco games too.

In a notice on 2 November, Sega Fave said a third party had got into servers linked to ALL.Net and Aime, and that it had switched the services off at 3pm (Japan time) on Sunday 1 November while it investigated. It says its first checks found no sign of customer or business partner data being taken, and that payment details, including credit cards, are kept on separate servers and were not affected. The investigation is still going.

With the network down, online play, Aime cards, store finders and Sega’s PrizeON and Lucky Kuji Online services all stopped. Worse still, Game*Spark and GameBusiness.jp report that Bandai Namco’s ALL.Net games can only run offline for up to 72 hours before their licence check fails, so some arcades found their Taiko no Tatsujin cabinets would not run at all.

The eight games coming back

According to Bandai Namco Experience, these titles start returning from today, with online play and cards working again:

• Taiko no Tatsujin
• Mario Kart Arcade GP DX
• Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 6RR PLUS
• Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme Vs. 2 Infinite Boost
• Mobile Suit Gundam Arsenal Base
• The Idolmaster TOURS
• JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Last Survivor
• Fishing Spirits Wonder

It is a careful restart: arcades are asked to power each machine on and check it works properly before opening it to players, and Bandai Namco says planned updates and limited-time events may move.

Sega’s games: still waiting

For Sega’s own titles, which include Initial D The Arcade, maimai DX and CHUNITHM, GameBusiness.jp reports, citing the official ALL.Net service account, there is still no date to restart, and the next update is due at around 9am Japan time on Tuesday 10 November.

Our take

This is a stark reminder of how much a modern arcade depends on one network. A rhythm game cabinet that cannot reach its server, or a drum game that locks itself after three days offline, is a very expensive ornament, and spare a thought for the arcade owners who have lost a week’s takings. Good news for Taiko fans, then, but we will be watching Tuesday’s update for Sega. The outage was even felt at Amusement Expo in Tokyo, where Sega had to pull Initial D from its stand.

Should arcade games be able to run fully offline when the network goes down? Tell us in the comments.