Who Ruled the Arcades back in the Day?

I narrowed it down to 4 companies. Sega who were the masters of Sprite Scaling and innovators in 3d hell they were doing 3DS shit 20 plus years ago. Namco who I always feel has a lets one up what Sega does deal and also just pumped out great game after great game plus they created Pac-man. Capcom Not just becuase of Street FIghter but how they took Double Dragon and perfected it's Formula and just the largae amount of quality games they put out in arcades. Lastly is Taito They created Yen coin shortagesa with Space invaders and had alot of great shmups and games in other genres plus they were early adopters of the wide screen format and AND ZUntata neet I say more? I asked this else wehre an annoying number of people saying SNK pretty much ignoring that SNK just did what others were doing and made it their own they didn't really ever rule arcades every SNK MVS I've seen were usually in the back of arcades. Also I gotta give honorable mentions to Midwway and Data East. Midway were by and far the best early western developers and Data East games were just, Unique.

 

Everyone had a few hits and a lot of misses, so I'm not sure this topic is possible to quantify.

I'd give Konami a spot as soon as Namco. I'm not sure either of them had any culturally significant games past the mid 80s though, which probably means Nintendo is as deserving if only for Donkey Kong. I agree with Taito, pretty much every one of their franchises was an arcade hit.

Sega did have a lot of hits, but it's just from their sheer number of games. The majority are utterly forgettable.

 

Konami were the Kings of the Licensed games.

 

I don't see how you could start a like this and not have Atari on it. Star Wars, Paperboy, Tapper, Toobin, 720". Centipede, Marble Madness. They easily had some of the most innovative and unique games in their heyday.

 

Since Midway Aquired Atari's Arcade division I'm retroactively including them in the package. Toobin is one of my alltime favorite games I infact just bought the Gameboy Color Version. Individually Midway and Atari had their impact but as a single unit they are a tour deforce. Don't forget Rampage, but I think that's the Midway Half of things. But you are right on one thing Atari did get the ball rolling with Pong and that half of Atari was not aquired by Midway.

 

A good ranking, in my opinion:

1. Sega
2. Namco
3. Konami and Taito
4. Capcom
5. Atari and SNK
6. Nintendo
7. Data East
8. Jaleco and Irem
9. Psykio
10. Technos

 

Alot of the SNK votes I got on the Happy Console Gamer group came from Brazil. But I'd say that is a Fair list Nintendo is a bit high seeing as they only had a handful of Arcade htis before branching into the NES. But what's with 3 tied rankings and why did you rank those companies together? And what did Technos do in arcades besides Renegade and Double Dragon?

 

I agree with Johnny's list. I mainly enjoyed units from SEGA and Namco. Around early 2000s Namco had money printing games, not sure about now though. All I see is Daytona machines.

 

I can't believe the pulling power Daytona and Sega Rally has in the arcades still. Surely you would think there would of been a few more sequels / rom upgrades to feature more cars and tracks than there currently are.


I would like to add Hudson to the list for the awesome arcade versions of Bomberman (unless Hudson had nothing to do with the arcade version).

 

Sega undoubtably was the king of the arcade. From the early- to mid-80s onward, they had the most advanced hardware around - and they had tons of great software to support it. Their hardware easily eclipsed any consumer consoles that were available, and even exceeded high-end PCs at times. It's too bad more of it didn't see home conversions.

 

Some companies are tied together simply because i don't it's impossible to put them down on the list. As for Technos, yes i put it there for Double Dragon alone.

Namco "died" when they merged with Bandai =/

Sega / AM2 created the arcade multiplayer masterpiece with Daytona USA. Play it with some friends, it never gets old, it never gets boring. Nothing Sega made after it was so brilliant.

Irem and SNK handled the arcade ports of Bomberman.

 

even my earliest memories of arcades involve playing Outrun and playing outrun now on my Saturn in full 60fps mode it's still impressive. Sega were the masters of using 2d sprites for 3d effects. I remember as simple as Virtua racing was how impressive and jaw dropping it was. Or this time I was at a Chuck E Cheese and they didn't have anything good so all I did was play the Outrunners machine. The Only fight I ever got into at an arcade was over a shinobi machine. Well there was this fat kid that harassed me this one time and kept hitting me on the head while I was playing Final fight calling me white Urkle the mule kick I gave himsent him flying into the ticket redemption case.

YEP. I did do that fat ass.

 

Some places have the "To the MAXX" ROM hack on it, but apart from that nothing. Daytona is only fun with 7 other players. I can play the game on my own with my 360 and PS3.

 

It was the staff guy who'd walk around with the keys chained to his belt. He was the one who ruled.

 

I do remember playing Out Run on a Deluxe Version when i was like 7 or 8. Still play it to this day on MAME.

First time i saw Virtua Racing i spent a long time simply watching it. Was so impressed with the multiscreen attract mode, multiple views, the very loud sound (back then it reminded me of Super Monago GP), Virt McPolygon extra monitor for "Live" coverage...

This was just too impressive for 1992/1993:


Damn i miss the arcades.

 

Saturn is where I get my Outrun fix.

As much as I love Sega though my dream arcade cab is either a Pac-man or Ms Pacman. ALTHOUGH... a Super Pac Man would fine too that game gets no love.

 

8 player screen linked attract show!

 

Come again?

 

This might be incomprehensible to a Sega freak, but IMO (I don't think I'm entirely alone) Sega put out a lot of meh/generic games, especially in the 80s. They had many successes over the years, but they also made far more games than most other developers. Plus a lot of their hit arcade games had contemporary technical merits, but their shallowness didn't turn out to be as culturally significant, even if the games have a few fans around here.

I'm not counting Sega's licensed games, a few of which are probably culturally significant like Frogger (Konami).

 

Had no idea you could do that kind of stuff with an emulator! Like you I spent ages just watching the Virtua Racing machines in sync with each other. That blew my mind. When I was in America we went to Disney World and inside Epcot centre they had some kind of technology show. SEGA had a pretty big presence there and the one thing that sticks out (apart from seeing the Saturn for the first time) was a row of VR machines with massive screens and dummy cars that moved. Stood in queue for quite a while to play one of those and it was well worth it!

edit: Found a video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puxmDsEnY1Y&feature=player_detailpage#t=71 The VR machines are in there!