Battle Gear 3 (Arcade)

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Battle Gear 3
Developer: Taito Publishers: Taito, Betson Enterprises (US) Platform: Arcade (Namco System 246) Released in JP: November 2002 Released in US: 2003? This game has regional differences.

This game/console's online features are no longer supported. While this game/console's online features were once accessible, they are (as of December 26, 2005) no longer officially supported and online-exclusive features may be documented as now-unseen content.

To do: On international English versions, is NESYS support toggled by game settings or ROM?

Battle Gear 3 is one of earliest arcade games with support for online services, with the NESYS service allowing players to save their progress in form of an actual car key (instead of save cards).

It's also the point when the series was dangerously getting close for Kodansha to send Taito a cease-and-desist letter.

Regional Differences

The North American version of the game, distributed by Betson Enterprises in limited quantities and with different cabinet design, appears to be a recompile due to a different, higher media ID (M9005951A; the Japanese and international English versions have media ID of M9005793A). The US English software is otherwise identical to the (NESYS-enabled) international English one, apart from the following changes:

• Following the boot-up legal disclaimer (where the lines prohibiting operation in the US on the international English version is replaced with one indicating it is solely for use there instead), an additional disclaimer appears that indicates the cars featured in the game are Japanese domestic market models and that USDM Honda/Acura models are not used. This disclaimer also appears when selecting a car; however both are stored separately, due to a missing plural.

Startup	Image of cars in this game are Japanese models and the U.S. Honda/Acura models are not used in this game.
Car Selection	Images of cars in this game are Japanese models and the U.S. Honda/Acura models are not used in this game.

This change (and the necessary recompile) was because of licensing issues relating to Honda cars, as Honda's American branch handled licensing in that region, which resulted in racing games from that period having the NSX (and sometimes, the Integra) rebranded as Acura models, while Honda-branded cars have their trim names changed to reflect actual cars as sold in that market (or, if not having an USDM equivalent, carry a Japanese model designation). In North American versions of Side by Side 2 and the first Battle Gear, the Honda cars were disabled, and marketing flyers for Battle Gear 3 indicated the Honda cars were to be disabled again in the North American version. Coincidentally, stateside-bound Initial D Arcade Stage cabinets and flyers (but not necessarily in-game), which was released around the same time as Battle Gear 3, feature a licensing credit for Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Japan), and the Honda cars in those Initial D games were left unchanged.

• The US English version uses a different server hosted by Betson, bg3.betson.net, while the Japanese version uses battlegear.net server (and for international versions wherever NESYS is enabled and available, battlegear3.com.hk is used instead).