Taito announced that it will shut down its online servers for Groove Coaster 4MAX: Diamond Galaxy and turn it into a permanently offline game on April 1, 2024, at 6 AM JST. The rhythm arcade game will remain available after the date, as long as arcade centers still retain its cabinets.
Once the game goes offline, players will no longer be able to record their play data with NESiCA cards. In exchange, the Extra mode and all difficulty levels for each song will be unlocked by default. Versus mode will only be available locally if the outlet is running multiple cabinets of the same game.
The company will also shut down the Groove Coaster 4MAX My Page website, where players could view achievements and customize their in-game interfaces, on April 8, 2024.
The Groove Coaster series producer Takuma Hanagata provided more context to the arcade game’s offline transition. In late 2022, his team announced that new content updates were no longer possible due to hard drive constraints. Even though the team promised that the online servers would remain available for the foreseeable future, the lack of new content directly led to fewer outlets retaining the game’s cabinets.
The team ultimately decided that continuing to maintain online services in this situation would be difficult. It will hold one last online versus event where players can collect titles and trophies before the Groove Coaster arcade game goes offline.
Groove Coaster 4MAX: Diamond Galaxy is available in arcades.
