my latest pick up Ghosts 'n Goblins what the HELL?! "Sir Michael" not Sir Arthur

[mrclean]

So I finally tracked down a nice dedicated Taito Ghosts n' Goblins cabinet last night. I'm pretty excited to add this one into my collection and it's perfect timing with Halloween right around the corner. So the first night I play the game in my garage with the lights off and noticed that the instructions on the bezel almost glow in an eerie way from just enough light coming from the marquee light filtering through the speaker grill. So I started to read the instructions on the bezel and it says "Sir Michael" ?! I could sworn the whole time it was "Sir Arthur" ? Did his name get changed once Ghouls n Ghosts came out 3 years later? Or perhaps only the dedicated Taito cabinets said sir Michael? maybe an early serial number batch ? I could of sworn his name was always Arthur. Any one else care to chime in ? So I went to Mr. Do's aka James's In-Game MAME Art downloaded the bezel for Ghosts 'n Goblins, and sure enough it said sir Michael also.
 

Apparently Phet on the KLOV forums also noticed the same thing 4 years ago.. http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?p=177054#post177054

Now for something even creepier. I put the bezel image into photo shop and randomly cropped the bezel to show the instructions, and hit properties and it said the height of the image was "666 pixels". That's just really creeping me out.

Needless to say I'm glad I found a nice working DEADicated cabinet to add to my collection.

[mytymaus007]

According to this link Capcom is the company that made ghost n goblins not taito


http://ghostsngoblins.wikia.com/wiki/Sir_Arthur

[DaveMMR]

According to this link Capcom is the company that made ghost n goblins not taito


http://ghostsngoblins.wikia.com/wiki/Sir_Arthur

Taito had manufacturing and distribution rights in the US (their logo is also behind the joystick in the OP's pic).

Wild guess: Taito just didn't put too much effort in getting the story correct. This was at a time when we didn't put too much backstory in our video games - just quick little "this is why you're doing what you're doing" bits.

[ragnar]

You know how retired people buy cars from their youth right now and that has driven prices of 60s era cars up.  Is this going to happen to arcade cabinets in 20 years?

[mrclean]

Yes of course I know Capcom made the game, and distributed the rights to Taito, as well as Romstar. I personally think that the Romstar version has a way better marquee IMO:


I think that the artists got lazy and just used the bezel / marquee images and just re-sized everything. Over all the entire cabinet flows pretty well, but for whatever reason I think the romstar marquee is a billion times better.

And than some whacky bootleg versions:




I think however the dedicated Taito versions bezel is nicer than the generic / bootleg ones. Along with the control panel on the Tatio cabinet is nicer than the generic romstar text overlay with the button stickers.

Example of a williams cab with the romstar ghosts 'n goblins kit installed:


And the instruction card on that kit :


is different than this one:

You know how retired people buy cars from their youth right now and that has driven prices of 60s era cars up.  Is this going to happen to arcade cabinets in 20 years?

I've been asked that question by other collectors / non collectors... And who can really tell.

So when I think of a dedicated ghosts 'n goblins, I think of the purple taito version.

[opt2not]

You know how retired people buy cars from their youth right now and that has driven prices of 60s era cars up.  Is this going to happen to arcade cabinets in 20 years?

Doubtful. Retired people don't buy those cars and put modern computerized engines in them. People mame up classics all the time, in turn reduces their value considerably. And I'm not talking about some joe-blow conversion cabinet like a Dynamo cab, I'm talking the classics, i.e. the Asteroids, DK's, Pacs...

[leapinlew]

You know how retired people buy cars from their youth right now and that has driven prices of 60s era cars up.  Is this going to happen to arcade cabinets in 20 years?

Yeah, that happened like 8 years ago - when all the Gen Xers hit 35 and had real jobs and disposable income.  JAMMA cabinets went from worthless to $500.  Now they're worthless again.


Pinball prices shot up and have held pretty steady, but the volume of sales is way down.  I'm giving that hobby another 5 years tops before the bottom completely drops out.

Yup...

[Nephasth]

Pinball prices shot up and have held pretty steady, but the volume of sales is way down.  I'm giving that hobby another 5 years tops before the bottom completely drops out.

I better hold off on buying a pin...

[dr.detroit20]

Yes of course I know Capcom made the game, and distributed the rights to Taito, as well as Romstar. I personally think that the Romstar version has a way better marquee IMO:

Right on! Nice score. That is a great game, one of my favorites. And I agree, I also like the Romstar/Capcom marquee best. But that dedicated cabinet is not too shabby.

[mrclean]

This post is going off topic.. I really wanted to know if any one noticed the Sir Michael / Sir Arthur on the Ghosts N Goblins..But everyone has their own perceived value of what they think their stuff is worth.. Doesn't always dictate a buyer will think it's worth that much.

Oh and the dip switch settings on ghosts n' goblins were all whacky.. I used mikesarcade.com
http://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/spies.cgi?action=url&type=dip&page=Ghosts_N_Goblins.txt

and than I found these:
http://www.arcade-museum.com/dipswitch-settings/7938.html, Read the bottom and said :
Note: We received an email in January, 2011 that stated the following:  

"I can tell you after much trial and error that the settings on this page are completely reversed.

The settings for DIP board 1A  are actually for 2A and vice-versa.

Also, within those DIP boards, the switches, even though they're labeled on the PCB as 8-1 running LEFT ( to right (1),

are wrong on this cheat sheet as well.
Basically, reverse the order of the switches on both boards and change 1A to 2A and 2A to 1A."

sure enough that person was right and whoever originally posted the settings were all wrong. Just thought I'd pass that along if anyone else is pulling out their hair trying to change the dip switch settings on Ghosts 'n Goblins PCB. After reading that note I was able to set it up exactly how I wanted. I'm not sure how many other people keep all their games on similar / same settings. I personally like all my games with no demo sounds while in attract mode, 1 coin, 1 play / credit, normal difficulty, 3 lives.

[Rando]

You know how retired people buy cars from their youth right now and that has driven prices of 60s era cars up.  Is this going to happen to arcade cabinets in 20 years?

Doubtful. Retired people don't buy those cars and put modern computerized engines in them. People mame up classics all the time, in turn reduces their value considerably. And I'm not talking about some joe-blow conversion cabinet like a Dynamo cab, I'm talking the classics, i.e. the Asteroids, DK's, Pacs...

Sure they do,
It's called "Restomodding".  Bascially putting modern components, engines, suspensions, etc, in a classic car that looks old but performs like a newer car, safer, more stable, etc.  And just like here some people are for and against the practice.  Another thing they do is build "Clones" which is taking what was a basic standard version of a car and modify it to look like a special edition version, such as taking a stock Mustang and changing the paint/striping and possibly the performance to look/act like a Boss or Shelby version.

Can't say how this impacts the pricing in the overall market, but just pointing out that there are purists, modifiers, and people in the middle in both hobbies.