Japanese Donkey Kong machines?

Sir Kongsalot

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I'm just going to assume that you can probably count on one hand the number of Japanese Donkey Kong machines that exist (or ever existed) on American soil, and wouldn't be too surprised if you didn't use a single finger.

Well, somebody (presumably an American) dumped the ROM for MAME, so that's one, or one *board* at any rate, but I'm curious if there are any other known specimens.

Given Japan's "out with the old, especialy if it takes up space" propensities, how many do you suppose still exist over there?

People say the red Radarscope conversion is the rare grail for DK collectors. I'd venture to say that it's actually DK Japan!

Boy would I love to have one of those...
 

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The pic is small, but they look the same as what came here. There are DK cabarets in the US.
 
Different gameplay though!

The level order ends with the rivets, which makes sense because Kong is defeated. I don't have a DK to know, but I'd expect you could have the Japanese ROM's burnt and have your machine playing that version pretty easily.
 
Was there no cocktail version in Japan? To me that sounds like the obvious choice for them considering their love of candy cabs.
 
There is a cocktail version released in Japan, the most common version over there.

Here's a pic of mine. I sourced some NOS instructions from Japan.
 

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Is the instruction card in Japanese?

Yeah, both cards are. Hard to tell in that pic, but if you compare the layout to the U.S. card you can see some differences, especially that yellow window of text above Kong's head on the right.
 
Quick and dirty cell phone pic - sorry for the quality.
 

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Certainly it would be rare to find a japanese one here in the US. Maybe not as strange as you think. I think we have seen a german game here in the US.

The metal tag on the game will tell you.
 
Certainly it would be rare to find a japanese one here in the US. Maybe not as strange as you think. I think we have seen a german game here in the US.

The metal tag on the game will tell you.

I was surprised that Nintendo used different country code suffixes on the model numbers, UK, AU, US etc. Japan ones have no suffix.
 
Okay, this is great and all, but who owns a Mario Bros. cocktail that you brought up before, Steve? :D

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Okay, this is great and all, but who owns a Mario Bros. cocktail that you brought up before, Steve? :D

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Good question! There's a few in Japan, there's surprisingly detailed video of on YT somewhere of one in someone's garage in Japan.

I do have the manual and instruction cards though!
 

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