Mastering the one-armed crane

How to get big prizes from one-armed crane machines!
(Updated Jun 15, 2013)

OK, so I always thought you had to know some crazy super trick in order to win big prizes from a crane/claw machine.

But then today at Shimoda Jusco I was able to get not one, but TWO of the big Nameko plushes.
^______^

Completely by fluke, I managed to figure out the trick to getting the prizes from the machines with the prize two prizes, each hanging from a loop on a pole and a one-armed crane/claw.

Bad drawing of what the machine looks like. ^^;;

The (An) actual machine

You can kind of see the loop thing

I'd tried getting prizes from such machines before, but my strategy was completely wrong! I thought the aim was the get the claw to hook the bar part of the loop thing and lift it off the pole, but the claw is way too weak to lift it.

Even with perfect positioning this method doesn't work.

The trick is to get the claw to come straight down on the bar thing so it pushes it down and knocks it askew and eventually off the pole! (At first I was still trying to hook the prize but ended up knocking the bar accidentally and getting the prize really close to falling off.)

So all you need to do is line up the claw with the outer edge of the bar thing. (If the machine has two prizes to choose from, I recommend choosing the one further away from the claw since closer one might be too close, making it difficult get the crane in the proper position.)

Then when moving the claw backward, aim to have the "elbow" part line up with where you want the claw to hit the bar. The claw will move up and backward before scooping forward a little so if you aim for the front part (instead of the elbow) of the claw to hit the bar, it'll end up too far forward and you'll miss.

After the first hit it will probably take a couple more strategic hits before it falls off, but it's definitely doable! I really hope the 100 yen (per try) crane machine promotion at Shimoda Jusco continues for a while so I can practice/refine my technique!

(Edit: You may actually need to get the claw to hook and push the loop thing off for machines with just one prize hanging from the middle, or for other machines depending on the weight/balance of the prize and/or bar thing. I tried a machine with one Toy Story pig in the middle and the claw didn't go down as far or was just too weak to move the bar by pushing down. The push method seems to work best for the Nameko machines with two Namekos--maybe something to do with the weight/balance of the Namekos themselves? I don't know...)