Namco: Wii Damages Arcade Industry [news]

Honestly, the whole point of arcades is that you go OUT of your house with mates to play them and put them hard earned coins into the machine. Sure you could port many arcade games to consoles and the gameplay would certainly match but the experience is something that could never be replicated at home. DDR for example is great fun in a social environment compared to an isolated setting at home.

mOojc said:
Honestly, the whole point of arcades is that you go OUT of your house with mates to play them and put them hard earned coins into the machine. Sure you could port many arcade games to consoles and the gameplay would certainly match but the experience is something that could never be replicated at home. DDR for example is great fun in a social environment compared to an isolated setting at home.

Aye, tis true - its one of the things to do when hitting town, especially if you're running out of options

I think what they perhaps need to do is to close down a fair few of their arcades and really pimp out one or two bigger ones as the place TO go for new arcade games, so hopefully people would flock to these several few instead of having a mixture of decent-running locations and declining areas.

Perhaps reduce the price per play.

E.g. �1/race for Mario Kart GP is ridiculous. Per cup would be fine imo.

Very true, I have a few arcades near my place and they are all quite small with only a handful of the popular arcade titles available. Would love to see a bigger arcade area with more to offer rather than small outlets scattered all over the place. Heck none of them even have Mario Kart GP, the only arcade I know of that has it is a 1 hour drive from my place and it happens to be the biggest arcade I've been to. (Even has tenpin bowling and dodgem cars). Now it would be great to see a place like that near my area.

I think the price should be brought down as well, in AUS $2 bucks for 1 play isn't exactly cheap and sometimes not worth it at all.

Arcades have been in decline for years, what exactly is new about that?

RyanT said:
Arcades have been in decline for years, what exactly is new about that?

Arcade managers have got something to blame

For me one of the best parts of hitting London is going to the huge Sega World arcade, purely because it's big/well known so you can expect:

- Latest games available, in good condition
- Non-joystick games (i.e. amusements/coin slots etc)
- Clean, working stuff.
- Decent prices (not too different from the norm)

We make sure we always pop into the Trocodero for some arcade time, and because its quite rare to hit central London all the time, we spend a fair bit of time and money in there.

If there was a local arcade, I probably wouldn't be arsed!

Namco have always had long expertise in Arcade gaming, it's good to finally see that they realise the market is running dry, for them anyway.

Arcades will forever be around, but not Namco, they do not create the sort of Arcade machines that live long, and they rarely push the technology in the same way others do constantly.

I would like to see some classic franchises make the move to Wii before they are lost forever. Point Blank and Galaxian to name but a few.

( Edited 07.02.2008 12:11 by Linkyshinks )

Basically was going to make the point that JB made, Trocodero is great and they need to make more arcades like that, but most of them are overpriced.

all the arcades i know don't have a game younger than 10 years! all the cars racing games are block racing games and the only shooting game i see is time crisis (the very first one)! and paying a euro a pop even two it's a joke

( Edited 07.02.2008 16:45 by iangennery )

Arcades have been dying out for years...who wants to play dated games at an extortionate price when you can play them in the comfort of your own home?

Many games found at arcades can be found on consoles, and thats been the case for decades...as for the 'experience', that's been replicated at home for decades aswell, with the likes of steering wheel controllers, etc.

I doubt anyone has thought 'Great, now I have this Wii, I won't have to trudge down to the arcades everyday!".

Plus the only arcade games I've ever wanted to play (Mario Kart and F-Zero), I've never seen.

I hate the mario kart arcade, it's not that reponsive. However my local cinema has got mario kart 2 arcade, I wouldn't mind trying that out.

there are absalutly no arcades near me at all so the VC on the wii is great for me...

"A lot of the types of games that people played at an arcade can now be done at home"
Yuji Machida - Namco Badai

Which says to me "We know arcades are worse that home consoles, but we want you to spend money at arcades anyway."

For me to go to play an arcade game, it has to offer something different and really draw me in, like lights guns, racing booths, touch screens, rhythm games (like a drum, dance, or keyboard game). Or even a solid classic with arcade controls is nice.

I only have a really cruddy arcade around me. And a few games in Walmart.

RyanT said:
Arcades have been in decline for years, what exactly is new about that?

exactly.

Arcades are Dead in Australia...I only know 3 places in Sydney that can be count as Arcade...

( Edited 07.02.2008 22:52 by Simple N Clean )

Good grief. The arcade industry has been taking a major dive for years since quality arcade games have been released on home systems (many which actually outperform their arcade counterparts). This is old, old news.

In fact, here where I live in the States (Southern California), almost all the arcades are gone and have been for quite some time. Only a small handful have remained and they don't see a whole lot of action. For these same reasons, I have NEVER scene Mario Kart GP or F-Zero AX in any of them. And I REALLY wanted to give them a whirl.

Arcades need to give us new expirence.
They should have stayed ahead of the home market (both input and output), now a lot of them are hugely behind.

Yeah most of you are saying the same thing I am. There are virtually no aracades around anymore. Heck most places I know of that have them are places I have to pay to enter just to play and that's not worth it. And A couple people stated that the games that arcades have nowadays are at least ten years old... Completely true. I am a bit of a traditional gamer myself, but I'd love to see more new games in arcades instead of just Ms. Pac-Man and Marvel vs. Capcom all the time.

I haven't been in an arcade for I think almost an entire year...