In the recent past, April hasn’t always been home to many (if any) amusement trade shows, however that has been changing in recent times, with new events springing up for the business. In just this last week alone we’ve had three expos take place that featured some arcade games, so let’s take a look at all of them – Malaysia’s GTI Southeast Asia, England’s ARE, and Taiwan’s TAGE Expo – in a quick round-up.
GTI Southeast Asia Expo
For the first of the two new events, GTI are better known for their expos out in Taiwan and China, with the latter being the main one each September. But since last year they have also established a smaller Southeast Asia show for Taiwan, which some of the less large-scale companies out of that region have been using as a chance to promote themselves better. Due to AAA in China being just around the corner from when they are holding these, no new product launches seem to be happening at them, but they should serve as a little preview for what’s to come soon in mid May (which we will cover as usual).
3MindWave
The company we have to thank for the coverage of this show is none other than 3MindWave, who have been making an impression in recent years with their various games done with Sega Amusements (ATV Slam, Apex Rebels etc), as well as Wahlap, with Storm Racer 2 and Rider X being the newest among those. Last time they showed off Alpha Ops VR Strike here, and though that was still being promoted with some banners this year, the only product they had on hand was a nicely-detailed classic car kiddie ride. As you’ll see in a moment however, another company did have their two latest games there too.
Apparently this was at IAAPA last year, though not sure where it could be found. Thanks once again to 3MW (particularly Aaron) for the help with all the GTI Southeast Asia coverage here.
Joint Fun/Daka VR
This company is a little confusing, as though Joint Fun is their main name they also are being very tenacious in keeping their Daka VR business going, where this is usually co-located next to them with its own booth. Either way, they aren’t the most well known of names overall, but some of their games have been starting to show up here and there in Europe, and with concepts as wild as their Running Ostrich game it wouldn’t be surprising if someone carries them in North America sooner than later.
Their Daka VR side meanwhile has conspicuously Super Bikes 3-looking bikes for their Ace Rider game:
Semico
Finally, this Malaysian distributor off in the corner (other companies like Palm Fun did appear, but they were mainly focused on redemption) was where you could find Wahlap and 3MW’s Storm Racer 2 and Rider X, as well as a couple of Godzilla Kaiju Wars DX cabinets from Raw Thrills. Apparently the machines here were being sold by them on special offer, and they quickly found buyers, so that’s good to hear.
ARE Expo
The UK also got a new series of trade shows last year, with the new ARE Expo complementing their larger EAG events each January by happening further up north in Manchester. The second edition of this just wrapped up today, and Ted once again attended the first day of it on the 28th for us; it seems like a few exhibitors that appeared in 2025 didn’t return here, including Bandai Namco, although part of that may well be in anticipation of IAAPA Europe also coming to the country this September.
Electrocoin
Electrocoin had one of the main new titles seen here, as since it was unveiled after EAG, this was the first chance for Stern’s Pokémon to hit expo floors in the UK. It has already shown up at some locations there too, including Electrocoin’s own arcade (Funland) and Chief Coffee elsewhere in London. Oddly enough, they didn’t have the new Dance Dance Revolution Universal model alongside it – but that would be because they were pulling a double shift by appearing at Spain’s gambling-focused Interazar with it at the same time.
They did additionally have a variation of a new football/soccer videmption game that is being sold in the USA through JET Games USA. JET’s version is called World Football Frenzy, while the UK version is called Football Champ. There seems to be some notable differences between the two, particularly in the cabinet design – different marquee, different coin box, US version is larger with an 86″ screen, UK has a 65″ and also appears to have two balls. The redesigned coin box for the UK version does look much better in my opinion – WFF’s sticks out too much, but this one allows you to get kicks in from the left. Unsure if there are any differences software wise, but what could be seen out in Vegas had four mini-games.
Instance Automatics
Instance Automatics, the UK’s main distributor of UNIS product, appeared in the same spot as last year up against the back wall here. Unfortunately this did not include most of UNIS’ newer games, including Cyberpunk 2077: Chrome Rush (although that specific one still isn’t shipping just yet), and other titles like Turbo Nova may have simply been too big to bring. As it is though, Spin City was seemingly one of the only new titles they had over the previous show, with the likes of Monster Kart making repeat appearances.
Sega Amusements
Sega Amusements also didn’t have much new at ARE, outside of the different soccer-themed version of ICE’s Slam-N-Win. Simon Arcade (seen missing its marquee here, though it was later added from the looks of this photo on Linkedin) and a small number of other things in redemption like the out-of-shot Mini Cube Prize World filled out the rest of the space they had. We can confirm that their latest titles like Daytona Championship USA Motion Edition should be shipping soon, however, after a few delays held them back.
TAGE Expo
Finally, we have another event out in Asia, but unlike GTI’s new Malaysian expo this one has been around much longer. Since 1993 the TAGE Expo has been the main trade show for Taiwanese companies in amusement and gaming, though we have neglected to mention it until now as there has been little to no news coming from the event to cross our desk. Like some Asian exhibitions, that’s often because detailed coverage isn’t too common, but on this occasion one of its co-organizers (AGIS) fortunately posted numerous looks at exhibitors to their Facebook, which is where all the below photos come from.
Feiloli
A name we haven’t mentioned particularly often but has been out there for a while now is Feiloli, probably the biggest maker of crane games out there in Taiwan. As such, they brought a lot of those here (alongside other major manufacturers of those like Paokai), but they have done some videmption alongside that in the recent past, and it also seems that they are working very closely with Smart Industries out of Iowa right now, as they had both JJ Bot below, and Scream N Win as seen in other photos at the above link.
As well as those, they also something new: Beast Pull. Unfortunately, much like Scream N Win this seems to have some pretty extensive generative AI usage for its graphics, which don’t look great, but the game is an unusual one, with the gameplay revolving around you pulling an actual rope tied to an in-game beast.
IGS
It wouldn’t be a Taiwanese show without the main arcade stalwart of that territory, IGS, who otherwise typically leave the expo work to the companies that carry their games. That said, they don’t often use these shows to debut new games now, with this one only having their latest racers and shooters done with the likes of Wahlap and Baohui (Speed Rider 4DX, Phantom Vanguard, Monster Eye 3, the Asphalt range etc).
This photo from the side makes you appreciate how similar Speed Rider 4DX and Asphalt Moto Blitz‘s cabinet designs are, though they aren’t exactly the same (Asphalt’s upper half does some different things):
Shain You
Although Shain You don’t make their own games, they are worth a small mention here for bringing a little bit of pinball action to Taiwan, as they are seemingly Stern’s official distributors over there. Having said that, unlike Electrocoin at ARE, they didn’t have their latest title in Pokémon around, instead focusing on The Walking Dead Remastered, King Kong, X-Men, and Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye.
That is it for this rundown of the April trade shows, but stay tuned to the blog and our social media channels, as May will bring two events that will have more new game announcements for arcades – EVO Japan 2026 (which is just around the corner, and already has had one reveal), and the aforementioned AAA Expo out in China. Until then, what do you think of 2026’s GTI Southeast Asia, ARE, and TAGE Expos?
The post April Trade Shows: GTI Southeast Asia (Malaysia); ARE (UK); TAGE Expo (Taiwan) appeared first on Arcade Heroes.
