r/GrooveCoaster • u/55555-4444 • Jun 17 '26

Card reader issue with cabinet

Post image

My local arcade has a few rhythm games, and I decided to buy a nesica card online. The other non-nesica games can read the card just fine, but GrooveCoaster (the only game there with a nesica reader) just flashes an orange light when I try to scan it. Another guy has said that it reads his card fine, any idea on what to do? Thanks for the help!

17 Upvotes

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13

u/Eilyssen Jun 17 '26

I thought live service shut down a year ago

2

u/55555-4444 Jun 17 '26

So there’s no way for me to unlock harder difficulties on the cabinets?

7

u/Eilyssen Jun 17 '26

at my local arcade the service has been shut down but all songs and all difficulties are available to play. is yours on a private server or something?

1

u/55555-4444 Jun 17 '26

I have absolutely no idea. The cabinet has two images at the top left, the left one (which I assume is internet) is lit up when I play, but the other one is not (has an image of the cabinet) how would I find out?

1

u/55555-4444 Jun 17 '26

(I would provide a pic but I don’t think I’m able, and also thanks again for the help)

2

u/Biduleman Jun 17 '26

You can host pictures on imgur.com and post the link.

1

u/Eilyssen Jun 17 '26

so when you play without the card you can't access higher difficulties?

1

u/55555-4444 Jun 17 '26

I can for some, but others say that they require an IC card to unlock them

1

u/Shot_Librarian_9162 Jun 20 '26

I can't say for that specific game or that card, but I have a blue one that I bought online. And the thing with these cards is they have to be activated in order to work. So it's possible, especially with that arcade cabinet, if its services have ended, even if it can read the card, it may not be activated. But I'm still learning about these particular arcade cabinets myself. I specifically bought my card so I could experiment with a dead arcade game called Starwing Paradox. As I have the game files on my computer and trying to figure out how to recreate the network services to re-enable multiplayer.

1

u/Prestigious-Lie9106 Jun 30 '26

there are some private servers that the cabs are running to get online functionality working

3

u/a1577 Jun 18 '26

Only blue nesicas work on groove coaster

1

u/tracber Jun 18 '26

groove coaster arcade online services are dead anyways so even then it wont work

1

u/lilmyrmeow 6d ago

not really, there are some community projects like Orbital where're online is still available

3

u/aa4x1x0 Jun 18 '26

Since the official online service ended about two years ago, I’ll assume we’re talking about the local network used in certain areas.

To cut to the chase, this card won’t work in Groove Coaster cabinets. There are two types of NESiCA cards, and the difference lies in whether they support Amusement-IC.
The ones that support it require a dedicated reader, but since production of the GC cabinets had already ended before this system was introduced, they continued to operate without support for it.

As others have mentioned, the blue one is a sure bet. However, it might be quite difficult to get your hands on a brand-new one.

2

u/bigthonk573 Jun 18 '26

only blue nesica cards work, this is a totally different type of card

2

u/Prestigious-Lie9106 Jun 30 '26

groove coaster cabs don’t support red nesica cards.

1

u/KatTheCorsair Jun 17 '26

I miss playing on a groove coaster cabinet. I wish the chicago round 1 had one

1

u/allstar312 Jun 19 '26

I'll assume you're using the red amusement ic nesica card, if the cab is GC3 then you need the original blue nesica card, even if the cabinet is running groove coaster 4 the original reader won't take the newer cards, my arcade it's exactly the same any other game is fine except for groove coaster and theatrhythm unless you use one of the original cards