The Exa board, by Exa-Arcadia, is something that has been a frequent subject of the posts here on Arcade Heroes. In case you missed those posts, let me sum it up in a sentence: The Exa Board is a modern Neo Geo MVS, a conversion kit that can go into an existing JVS cabinet (like a NAOMI cab) and is bringing new content to arcades in the form of game cartridges.
A number of games and development partners have pledged their support to the platform, which includes unique, exclusive content for any title that happens to have a console or mobile equivalent in existence. While many of the announced games fall under the shooter (shmup) genre, it also has shown fighting games, classic-style games, platformers, 4-player titles and more, as you can see from this sizzle reel posted online earlier this year.
The system recently shipped from Exa’s manufacturing facility in Tokyo to Japanese distributors, who are taking pre-orders through mid-November, but won’t be officially shipping the boards to customers until the end of the month, with the launch title, Aka & Blue, officially releasing on November 27th.
If you have been located outside of Japan, and have been patiently waiting for news on the system’s availability elsewhere, then today is the day you’ve been waiting for, as Exa-Arcadia has announced that pre-orders are now live on their website. Orders are expected to ship depending on stock, so as boards and cartridges are made available, they will ship. As such, locations that get their orders in early can expect to have a board in hand before the end of the year.
Some important notes before I get into a few more details:
You’ll notice that pricing is in “SGD,” which is Singaporean currency. This is because the Exa-Arcadia company is headquartered in Singapore. The shop
