Sad day, NJ largest arcade closes it's doors.

well, time to invest some money in the auction you think Assembler?

 

Hehe just checked my bank, I got 5000 euros burning a whole in it.

 

Any kind of link for this?

 

Arcades are basically dead in the West. Emulation and the console race killed them. Sad, but I wouldn't trade it back. I do miss the arcade experience, but the home gaming experience is just so much more fun now that technology has advanced.

 

Mmm... If only I was there and had some free cash. I still badly want a stand up Naomi cab or stand up Crazy Taxi cab.

 

It really is sad the way the arcade scene has gone in the west, it truly is :crying: Let's just hope that it never happens here too.

Yakumo

 

Move to the U.K Kev, plenty of Arcades here

 

Chav houses you say?

 

It's a shame really, the nearest arcade to me is the Namco Station in Manchester and it's a shit pit.
I once went in an ex (I let her drag me around the shops first ) 2-3 years ago and she was too busy worrying about the dozen chavs hanging around the DDR machine looking at us and other people obviously trying to start bother, she was well worried and it spoiled her fun (I was trying to teach her to play OutRun 2 lol). It's a chav infested shit pit.

We couldn't even play 2P Ghost Squad because one of the guns was fucked, probably broken by chavs... Gah. :crying:

 

Where abouts?

 

Move to Japan instead. Lots of decent arcades here including a decent retro arcade. Puyo Puyo, Some Mentai Mahjong game, Gradius, Mr Do and Donkey Kong. :love:

 

Kevin - where is the auction being held? - in NJ/NY?

Where in NJ was the arcade b.t.w?

 

No. Its the prices. 1.5 € for playing house of the death (for example) is just too exagerated. Kids dont have that much money.
Put on that that here in italy all the drugs dealers were mostly living in arcade points...and you have a nice cross!

On my side, what i really miss is a Pinball. I want an Addams family pinball.

 

The way I see it, arcades died for one good reason: lack of innovation...

Is no secret that during the last 20 years or more arcades were the proving grounds for future game technologies. Everything from gameplay, new graphics techniques and force feedback controls were made first for arcades, and when cost went down, then into consoles.

Today even new arcades are barely at the level of console gaming, while the majority are older units which are stuck between the 32bit and Dreamcast era, tech-wise.

Back in the day I went to the arcade to play the games that were lightyears beyond what I had in my home. Sure MVS was cool, but I'll rather play Daytona than another 2D racer in my Genesis.

Today going to the arcade is like being in a museum. Funny thing is that most kids there are younger than the games themselves!:shrug:

Theres still stuff that you cant have at home, like complex simulators. Is lame the arcade versions of HL2 are nothing but a common PC, while they could use some wiimote-like tech and make the whole experience more fun than the home version, let alone a different arcade-exclusive version of the game (like blue shift was meant to be on the DC).

Another example is flight sims: in a city near mine there was an arcade with an old G-Loc R360 unit. The fact is that even with the old Y board graphics the game was fun becos the thing would spin you around like crazy, and theres no way you can do that at home. Sadly when some hidraulic stuff got broke they decided to throw the whole thing into the trash.

I say Climax would rock on a R360 unit, just like a new Daytona with 1080p graphics and a InitialD-S4 cabinet would get people into arcade racing again.

And even without all this fancy mechanical stuff, arcades could have had a higher ground in the tech specs in the last 4 years by using HD. The fact is that most arcades are VGA of lower, and at a time when the most powerful console were PS2 and Xbox, an arcade powered by a big PC (like a dual Xenons, SLI GPUs and that) and a 1080p screen would've looked way better than any console games at the time.

The problem with the arcade biz is that nobody wants to invest/loose some money trying, and while you have guys like MS with the Xbox and Sony with the PS3 loosing cash by the millions, the fact is that whole-owned arcades with new games and cabinets is the next big thing in gaming.

 

haha I just prefer to be on the dodgems.

 

You see, everything you wrote there is beacuse your arcades are crap. Aracdes in Japan are always full of new and exciting games. Even something such as Out Run 2 is far more fun to play in the arcade than sitting at home with it on the XBOX.

Yakumo

 

We have a Tilt in a mall near me. Alot of good stuff goes through there
There's also a go kart track with a great arcade near me.
The Dave and Busters near me is pretty good too.

But I invested so much money bringing the arcade home that by the time I did the scene was dead.

BUT those places still exist. I just.......have no desire to go to an arcade anymore. Once I get a Race Wheel...it's over

 

Sad to hear...It's really too bad that arcades in the US seem to have all but disappeared...