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| jlfreund:
I'm surprised we don't hear more about the Japanese arcade market since it's still going strong after all these years. I've been curious what the deal is ever since I saw the movie Lost in Translation where some goofy teenager was freaking out to some kind of wacky Japanese arcade game. I recently spent a month in Tokyo (my first visit) so I made a point of trying to find an arcade. That wasn't hard to do -- they are thriving everywhere. So I wanted to post some pictures and impressions of what life would've been like here in the US, if the arcade industry hadn't died 2 decades ago. Unfortunately, I only have a few pictures... 1) [pic 1: row of arcade cabinets] All standard, modern arcade cabinets are alike in the arcades I saw. They are all sit-down cabinets with very nice, large CRT monitors. 2) [pic 2: fishing game] Four players stand on each side of a table with a projection of a fish pond. Each player feeds a row of tokens into the coin slot, while using a spinner to aim a fishing net. As soon as the token drops, a fish net is thrown out, and depending on your catch, you can win some tokens. Good players have several rolls of tokens queued up (maybe $10) and push them all into the coin drop when a big school of fish swims past. It looked pretty fun. 3) [pic 3: Kids games] There were a handful of half height kids cabinets at each arcade. They all seemed to have card slots where you can swipe your card with your "monster" data, and once loaded, you can have your monster fight your friends' monster. I didn't get a picture, but there were also a lot of girls photo booths at the arcades that seemed popular with the girls. It looks like these machines let you compose some kind of background and take polaroid with your friends. 4) [pic 4: Half life 2] I'm not sure if this is in the US (I haven't seen an arcade in the US in over a decade, and I've never seen this game). But the Half life 2 game was pretty popular there. You can swipe a card to load and save your game. I played a little bit at the beginner level and the content was taken from the original PC game, but modified a little for the arcade. It was fun, but the interface is nowhere near as good as the PC. 5) [pic 5: Card game]. Now this was something new.... my impression is it's some kind of turn-based multiplayer mecha-themed game, using electronic trading cards. It looks like you buy packs of trading cards (ala "magic the gathering") and take it to the arcade. Laying out and moving the cards on your machine's play field somehow controls the action in the game. There were about a dozen of these stations networked together, each outfitted with controls such as buttons, a trackball, and an electronic card grid, and all of them sharing a projection monitor in the front coordinating the game. Pretty inventive, and it looks like it's doing good business. Nice to see the merchandising and card trading business tie-ins to the arcade. The electronic card grid makes the experience unreproducible on the PC or console, and the card trading aspect should make the game addicting once you're invested in the cards and coming up to speed on the game system. 6) [pic 6: horse racing] Horse racing is huge in Tokyo, and this is another multiplayer game where players race and bet on horses. I didn't pay too much attention to what was going ont. There were so many other wacky variations of games, and the arcades were everywhere. Pretty exciting. Just as popular: casinos packed with contraptions that look like a cross between an arcade game and a slot machine. The front of these stores were always lined with very thick painted glass to block out the extremely loud noise blasting out of the machines. Jason |
| cowguy:
Always wanted to try out one of the Half-Life 2 arcade games... |
| danny_galaga:
--- Quote from: jlfreund on June 30, 2007, 02:19:53 am --- Just as popular: casinos packed with contraptions that look like a cross between an arcade game and a slot machine. The front of these stores were always lined with very thick painted glass to block out the extremely loud noise blasting out of the machines. --- End quote --- they sound like pachinko machines. sounds like you had fun scoping out the most important things (",) |
| Crowquill:
It's not so much that arcades died as they evolved. After the fighting game craze died down and the 32-bit home consoles came out, there wasn't much that an arcade could offer that you couldn't do at home. Traditional arcades died out, but new "entertainment complexes" sprung up in bigger cities. Dave & Busters, GameWorks, and Jillian's arrived here in Cincinnati. They're places full of big, deluxe games that also has a bar and restaurant attached. On a friday or saturday night the places are pretty busy. Jillian's closed down here, but their location wasn't that great. I went to GameWorks just last week. Most games are deluxe sit-down cabinets or if they are a joystick game they have a huge projection screen. Thanks for posting the pics. It's pretty sweet to see Guilty Gear next to Space Invaders. 2. Fishing game is very cool. 3. A few of these have made it to the states. GameWorks has Dinosaur King (the orange one in your pic) and Love & Berry (the pink one with the white front). It probably doesn't hurt that GameWorks is owned by Sega. 4. Looks nifty. What were the controls? 5. I've read about this one before. Gundam Card Builder. Some more pics from someone else are here. I would so love to see this thing in action. 6. That looks pretty similar to the Derby Owners Club game that GameWorks has. I've also seen these a few other places (1 at a Buffalo Wild Wings and one at a local truck stop). I've never seen one with more than one row of stations to bid at though. Once again thanks for the pics. Gameworks is fun, but Japanese arcades are still much cooler. The "casinos" you're refering to are probably Pachinko parlors. |
| Grasshopper:
Awesome, I'd love to visit Japan one day. |
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