beatmania IIDX 9th Style

Beatmania IIDX 9th Style is the ninth game in the beatmania IIDX series of music video games. It was released in arcades by Konami in 2003. The game features over 50 new songs, some of which can be unlocked using Konami's e-Amusement platform – which made its official debut on 9th Style. The interface used by 9th Style is more modern and crisper looking than previous styles, taking advantage of the better graphics capabilities of the new PC-based hardware which 9th Style now utilizes. The new hardware also eliminates the separate DVD player which was used on previous versions for background videos, as all the videos and data are now stored on the hard drive contained within the machine. 9th Style was the first version of IIDX to have support for Konami's new e-Amusement system, which can be used for the saving of stats and records to "entry cards". The entry cards were magnetic cards usually containing game artwork, inserted into a card reader mounted on the sides of the cabinet, and protected by a 4-digit pin. The cards could save stats and scores in between games, allowing new features such as the ability to sort songs by a player's previous performance on it (by letter grades, clear status, or full combos). When connected to the internet, scores could also be uploaded to the internet, but unlike future implementations, this was entirely optional. 9th Style did not require a network connection for full e-Amusement compatibility, and thus could be used while offline too.