Not trying to refute you point by point but I don't see the need for 3D, motion cockpits are : gimmicky, another part to break, increase production costs. Gear shifter, well its nice to have it, but not a lot of people use them.
Well, I disagree. Some of my Fav games were motion cockpit games. OutRun and Afterburner II.. were great in this format... and kinda flat without it.
I once played a motion cockpit space harrier in Florida. Id never seen it in that format before... and still not sure if it was some sort of hack. But it had a Huge monitor on it.. maybe 25" or larger. I usually am not a Harrier fan... but I was giggling like a school girl playing it on this setup. The larger monitor with the motion... really made you feel like you were flying. Even more so than Afterburner II. (probably also in part, cause Harrier has a lot of objects that are scrolling & scaling at light speed at you... where as Afterburner II, as frenzied as it can get... is a little sparse comparatively)
As for Stereo 3D, sorry Badmouth.. but to me, without it... its similar to listening to Music in only one ear. Or eating fries without salt. (if your partially / deaf in one ear as well >.< )
One of my favorite experiences in the arcades was playing a Continental Circus 3D. It was very rare.. only saw it Once with the 3d glasses. Sadly, people broke them. Seeing and playing that game in 3d is a real blast. There are tires, car parts, and smoke trails that fly out of the screen at you frequently. The depth really adds to the games impact.. which in 2d, seems lackluster.
The other great 3d games Ive played were on the Sega Master System. Missile Defense 3D is a reason for owning that system period. Maze walker was cool.. but a little slow in gameplay.
You can sorta play Continental Circus in mame in 3D... using a sega master system. Fire up the Sega + 3d game.. don the glasses. (you dont have to actually hook the sega up to a tv, you just need the glasses to be switching) Now fire up mame, start CS, and press F2 "in-game" (I believe its F2..) . The 3d mode will activate. Use the sega 3d glasses to look at your pcs monitor. Only problem, is that it wont be in sync... so it will kind of display perfectly for a moment.. then part of the screen will be rolling in 2d. Its worth it though, just to see how amazing it looks in 3d.
There might be other better options.. but have not tried yet. Occulus would surely help, if it becomes standard... and if mame supports it. Many 3d pc lcd glasses have been around for ages.. but that was before LCD monitors with locked 60hz rates came in and killed most of them.
Craptastically, Nvidia screwed people over, and stopped updating their 3d game driver for their cards... only years after its creation. After nearly a decade? passed.. The new LCD tech came out.. and they made a new "overpriced" 3d glasses model, for LCD 'only'. Again Screwing over the 3d enthusiast that already had CRTs, and perfectly working 3d glasses. (which merely needed a simple driver update to work just fine... rather than a new 3d compatible $300 lcd monitor + $200 glasses set. Prices have dropped since.. but still... )
As for Shifters.. well, your completely wrong with that. Working at an arcade for 3yrs solid, 5 days a week.. 40 to 50 hrs a week.. you see it all. Most people want to Try to use the shifter.. even if they are not good at it. The worst was Race Drivin... because people chose the shifter and couldnt get the car to start... due to the need in that game, to actually start the car with Key+gas+1st gear. But many others were quite good with the Shifters... and with many arcade racers... you get a higher Top speed, and overall better performing car, by choosing Manual shifter mode.
Personally, Ive never driven a real stick to date. However, I probably mastered Race Drivin's shifter when I was 10. Well before that... my fav shifter games were Sega Turbo (around age 7, and amazingly... got past 2 bonus stages... probably at age
And Spy Hunter (probably same age range... though admittedly, was not good at that game for some time. Much harder than Turbo obviously) The only time I didnt use shifters.. was sometimes on games that used Paddle Shifters. They were too much of a pain to multi-click into much lower gears after hitting something. Often lost track of how many clicks needed.
(ohh man, Dust off the cobwebs... I just remembered playing the Original black and white Sprint games. The old Atari shifters were kinda sucky.. as they were very stiff.. and the games themselves are very poor in steering response and issues when you got stuck in areas.. but, they were still fun to play. There was no auto-shift mode, that I recall)
A driving game without a Shifter, in most cases... is like being a famous Lead Guitarists... and given a sample board that has pre-recorded Riffs. Its too easy, too boring, and theres no soul or purpose. Its also like riding a One speed bike. Ugg, I loath the days I had one of those clunkers. The feel of changing gears on my old 10speed.. ahh, now those were some fun times. The experience isnt the same now though... As back then the bike was too big for me... so it felt 10x as fast. I also weighed 1/3rd as much, so could accelerate that baby fast, and drove it like Skywalker in the trenches!
(We need a lightsaber smiley Icon!
)
By all out, I meant that they didn't take a current cab that five other games already use and slap a batman sticker on it.That's rare today.
With a Batman License, they probably had a much greater budget.. due to the popularity of the theme.. and thus the Confidence of Scared investors in that brand. All in all though... its not really much. The cabinet is the least expensive thing on an arcade machine.
Custom plastics can cost a bit.. but in quantity as well as with cheap outsourcing... and or modification of existing molds... that can be reduced considerably. Plastic parts also screw in and assemble fast.. so production time / labor ...is a fraction of the costs of a pure wood / metal cab.
Actually, most of those plastics are probably simple vac-u-formed parts, which is dirt cheap.
LEDs make lighting easy these days.. and things like the Bat cutouts, can be done with laser / water jets really quickly and cheaply.
The bat sign on top is way too gaudy-big.. and the amount of light will be way too bright, probably very distracting to the player. Probably causing a lot of glare on the monitor glass.
The artwork / overall cab look is just 'Meh'. Comic - Generic / Gaudy. When I look at this, I dont see 'Batmobile', or Fast / Cool car. The cab is oddly wide due to the widescreen display.. and the dash seems to have no rhyme or reason to it. For example.. if those are mini displays, they should both be on the same plane. Otherwise, your going to have to look in 3 different places for things... making it too much of a pain to even try to peer at them.
The only really interesting thing on this machine is the Steering Wheel that has Fire buttons on it.
And possibly small active display panels... Though, thats probably just some stickers. But who knows..
Hopefully they can do better with the gameplay, than the cabinet. Unlikely, but we will probably see eventually.
The big question is why? If this has nothing really unique about it.. then anyone could play the thing on the latest console or pc. Thats why things like 3d & Motion help vastly.. cause most people cant afford a motion chair. (even though the Konix Multisystem was going to make one at an affordable price WAY back in time... And 3D is about to blow up now, with the Occulus)
And thats exactly why these games just dont work out well. They are all kiddie ride easy.. so people with skills just wont play them more than once. Or they are quarter eaters 'pay to win'... so again, no need to be skilled, no reason to play again once you have beat it. No reason to spend money getting good at it.. and no replay value once you have finished it.
The game will sell for Huge dollar value.. that the Op will probably NEVER recover, even in 12yrs of owning it. There will be a home version in less than 2yrs... so the op gets screwed over.. cause nobody will want to even play it on location anymore. And in 2 to 4 yrs, its graphics will look so outdated, that people will chuckle at it.
You would think that people would have learned their lesson, as to why the arcades failed. But the remaining companies just repeat the same fail mode business model. The Only places that make money back on these kind of games are places with super high population densities... like Japan, or in a high traffic tourist area. But even Japans arcades are finally dieing off. And that pretty much says it all. (I believe most of Japans arcade dollars actually came from Pachinko gambling machines actually... USA and many other countries didnt have such a 'float' mechanism, as well as suffered from greater delays in release dates, high shipping costs, and much more.. )
To get the arcades back, popular, and have players spend and return often... you have to create a very unique and challenging experience. To do so, requires a lot more time spent on perfection of gameplay, difficulty-ramping 'balance', and great level design. Most companies dont want to.. or dont know how to do this... or dont understand the concepts discussed, period.
As of now, there are very few places to even put a machine like this. Only places left, are places like the revived (but certainly not the same.. ) Chuck-E-Cheese, as well as other roller-rink / play zone places for little-tykes. Hence, the Kiddie Ride mentality.
But kids these days.. well, lets just say that my friends son isnt yet 4.. and he knows how to buy, install, and play apps on smartphones... as well as operate complex remotes and menu systems to play movies on their media tv system. Not sure the simple kiddie ride games are going to hold up at all, to the next gen gamers.