After almost yearly installments for nine years Nintendo and primary developer Hudson are giving the Mario Party series a break. Who knows when Mario Party 9 will come out.
In the meantime Capcom is making good use of their Mario Party license. At AOU 2009 their arcade/amusement machine department is displaying Mario Party Fushigi no Korokoro Catcher. The machine is like an arcade version of Mario Party that makes use of medals or tokens for play. What makes this Mario Party medal game different from Capcom’s two other Mario Party medal games? This one has some kind of UFO catcher/crane game element. A Mario Party game with tangible trinkets? Sounds neat!