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And if a game is exclusive on another platform doesn't that mean it's not on Microsoft's.

I had trouble understanding what you meant by this because the question-inverted word order doesn't appear to match the lack of a question mark. Did you mean "that doesn't mean..." or "doesn't that mean...?" So I'll try to reply to both interpretations:

Does being initially exclusive to Microsoft's platform (Windows) disqualify a game for a later release on Microsoft's other platform (Xbox One) once the game's developer eventually qualifies for the ID@Xbox program? If so, why should it?

The 1987 video game Contra by Konami was originally exclusive to a non-Microsoft arcade platform. In 1988 it was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, another non-Microsoft platform. Yet it got a port to Xbox Live Arcade on Xbox 360 in 2006. Did it get a pass because of the 1989 port to MSX2, a Japanese platform that shipped with Microsoft BASIC?

One other reason PS2 emulation is not 'top notch' yet is simple. Because the people who can write these sorts of things (ie the good emu guys) do not even want to touch it. They get TONS of junk email of 'emulate xyz game pluuueze'. Day in and day out. People randomly harassing them on boards because some random game is not pixel perfect yet. So the sort of people who could write a ps2 emu dont not work on it at all. There are tons of other kinds of emus without the grief.

One day we will see a full software stack PS2. But not for say 10 years. Not because the hardware isnt up to it. But because it just simply too recent of a machine.

When MAME guys gets around to making system246 style hardware work decently. Then we will see better PS2 emulators. They have deliberately stayed away from it for this very reason.
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=543
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=831
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=586
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=802

One other reason PS2 emulation is not 'top notch' yet is simple. Because the people who can write these sorts of things (ie the good emu guys) do not even want to touch it. They get TONS of junk email of 'emulate xyz game pluuueze'. Day in and day out. People randomly harassing them on boards because some random game is not pixel perfect yet. So the sort of people who could write a ps2 emu dont not work on it at all. There are tons of other kinds of emus without the grief.

One day we will see a full software stack PS2. But not for say 10 years. Not because the hardware isnt up to it. But because it just simply too recent of a machine.

When MAME guys gets around to making system246 style hardware work decently. Then we will see better PS2 emulators. They have deliberately stayed away from it for this very reason.
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=543
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=831
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=586
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=802

One other reason PS2 emulation is not 'top notch' yet is simple. Because the people who can write these sorts of things (ie the good emu guys) do not even want to touch it. They get TONS of junk email of 'emulate xyz game pluuueze'. Day in and day out. People randomly harassing them on boards because some random game is not pixel perfect yet. So the sort of people who could write a ps2 emu dont not work on it at all. There are tons of other kinds of emus without the grief.

One day we will see a full software stack PS2. But not for say 10 years. Not because the hardware isnt up to it. But because it just simply too recent of a machine.

When MAME guys gets around to making system246 style hardware work decently. Then we will see better PS2 emulators. They have deliberately stayed away from it for this very reason.
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=543
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=831
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=586
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=802

One other reason PS2 emulation is not 'top notch' yet is simple. Because the people who can write these sorts of things (ie the good emu guys) do not even want to touch it. They get TONS of junk email of 'emulate xyz game pluuueze'. Day in and day out. People randomly harassing them on boards because some random game is not pixel perfect yet. So the sort of people who could write a ps2 emu dont not work on it at all. There are tons of other kinds of emus without the grief.

One day we will see a full software stack PS2. But not for say 10 years. Not because the hardware isnt up to it. But because it just simply too recent of a machine.

When MAME guys gets around to making system246 style hardware work decently. Then we will see better PS2 emulators. They have deliberately stayed away from it for this very reason.
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=543
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=831
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=586
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=802

F355 Challenge and flight sims on three screens.

http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=906

This is Da Shizzle. http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=770

Previously you had all sorts of different arcade systems, first they were game specific hardware, then you had "systems" per manufacturer (Sega System 16 etc.), and today everyone just builts their arcade games around standard PC hardware, some are even running Windows.

Previously you had all sorts of different arcade systems, first they were game specific hardware, then you had "systems" per manufacturer (Sega System 16 etc.), and today everyone just builts their arcade games around standard PC hardware, some are even running Windows.

So did this 1993 32-bit arcade game, Gale Racer

Is it something like this one?

Many arcade games also had (multiple) Z80's in them. ( http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=516 ).

many of the most popular games before the advent of 3D systems were 2D

Which ones weren't?

(What they should have done is just figured out a way to take "Model-1" or "Model-2" and put it into mass production).

Model 2 system specs.

8MB of RAM was a lot back then, and might have been prohibitively expensive. The Saturn shipped with only 2MB. RAM was a big limiting factor on lots of home systems simply because how much it cost was quite disproportionate to the cost of a home console. This became especially true as most arcade games are/were shipped on cartridges where fast access allowed for lower RAM buffers. Home systems at that point moved to the much slower and RAM hungry CD's.

The Jaguar was a failure on many fronts. Personally, the failure of the release titles showed in my mind a failure on the part of Atari to understand the market. "Aliens vs Predator" was an amazing game, and the only Jaguar game I still pull out of the closet, yet it was not the hyped one. The games that were hyped at launch, Cybermorph and Trevor McFur were terrible. Trevor barely rose to the level of a tech demo... anyone would be ashamed to show that game at E3, let alone launch it, yet Atari hyped it like the second coming. At least Cybermorph was a failure of design and art rather than a failure of design, art, engineering, and production. Checkered Flag was overall not a bad racing game, if it wasn't for some terrible controller tuning. A skilled designer should have been able to make that game sing in a week, yet it shipped like an uncontrollable mess.

Difficult hardware has been released by other companies in the past with passable or good results. Atari really just didn't seem to care enough to push for quality, and it showed.

(there was an arcade system that was basically a Dreamcast on steroids, although the name escapes me now)

What you really mean is that it looks like this http://www.system16.com/namco/hrdw_medium.html#rrf s

MAME doesn't emulate the Sega Model 3 arcade board used for Star Wars Trilogy. Supermodel appears to be a workingish one, but from the looks of things, Star Wars Arcade doens't actually work yet, apart from the 2D bits.

Definatly a great game, I usually put a couple of quid into one if I see one.

Exactly. I still prefer the original Soul Calibur on Dreamcast to any of the versions of Soul Calibur 2 on Xbox/PS2/GameCube. It just ran smoother and better than any of those other ports. This is due to the fact that the Dreamcast was essentially the same hardware as the Sega Naomi board that powered Soul Calibur arcade machines.

Neither Soul Calibur nor Soul Calibur 2 were Naomi games. Soul Calibur was a System 12 game, whereas Soul Calibur 2 ran on System 246. System 12 was similar hardware to the original PlayStation; System 246 is nearly identical to the PlayStation 2.

I also prefer the original Soul Calibur to SC2, but not because it "runs smoother" - they all run at 60fps, and the PS2 port of SC2 is the closest to its arcade namesake of any Soul Calibur or Soul Calibur 2 release (because it actually is the same hardware, the only difference being a lot of RAM in the arcade machine instead of a DVD drive). The art direction changed a bit from SC1 to SC2, for one (with none of the ridiculous Todd McFarlane characters in the original), but the main thing was the original Soul Calibur port on Dreamcast was so much more advanced vs. its original arcade machine than any of the home ports of SC2. People were blown away by the original Soul Calibur partly because nobody expected it; there was no indication that the Dreamcast version would be anything more than a straight port, but it was far more than that. Years later and technology has progressed, but Soul Calibur 2 on the latest home machines looks basically the same, technology-wise, as Dreamcast Soul Calibur. This just makes the Dreamcast release seem even that much more amazing.

Anyway, so I personally think there's still a lot of good gameplay left on the Dreamcast... and these homebrew emulators are actually degrading to the system. Why do you need to emulate the Saturn when you've still got stuff like Soul Calibur to play on the Dreamcast itself? When a system's main use is to emulate other systems, that's when you know it really has died and gone to heaven. I don't even see the value in this anyway; is it really easier to play N64 demos on the Dreamcast (very slowly) than to actually hook up a real N64 and play actual games on it? What's the purpose of playing Saturn games on the Dreamcast when the real Saturn is so easily attainable?

The usual answer to questions like these when asked on this site is "because you can". I think that's a bullshit answer; I personally see projects like these as a complete waste of time, and wonder what all those programming man-hours could have gone to instead. Something far more useful than this, I'm sure.

Exactly. I still prefer the original Soul Calibur on Dreamcast to any of the versions of Soul Calibur 2 on Xbox/PS2/GameCube. It just ran smoother and better than any of those other ports. This is due to the fact that the Dreamcast was essentially the same hardware as the Sega Naomi board that powered Soul Calibur arcade machines.

Neither Soul Calibur nor Soul Calibur 2 were Naomi games. Soul Calibur was a System 12 game, whereas Soul Calibur 2 ran on System 246. System 12 was similar hardware to the original PlayStation; System 246 is nearly identical to the PlayStation 2.

I also prefer the original Soul Calibur to SC2, but not because it "runs smoother" - they all run at 60fps, and the PS2 port of SC2 is the closest to its arcade namesake of any Soul Calibur or Soul Calibur 2 release (because it actually is the same hardware, the only difference being a lot of RAM in the arcade machine instead of a DVD drive). The art direction changed a bit from SC1 to SC2, for one (with none of the ridiculous Todd McFarlane characters in the original), but the main thing was the original Soul Calibur port on Dreamcast was so much more advanced vs. its original arcade machine than any of the home ports of SC2. People were blown away by the original Soul Calibur partly because nobody expected it; there was no indication that the Dreamcast version would be anything more than a straight port, but it was far more than that. Years later and technology has progressed, but Soul Calibur 2 on the latest home machines looks basically the same, technology-wise, as Dreamcast Soul Calibur. This just makes the Dreamcast release seem even that much more amazing.

Anyway, so I personally think there's still a lot of good gameplay left on the Dreamcast... and these homebrew emulators are actually degrading to the system. Why do you need to emulate the Saturn when you've still got stuff like Soul Calibur to play on the Dreamcast itself? When a system's main use is to emulate other systems, that's when you know it really has died and gone to heaven. I don't even see the value in this anyway; is it really easier to play N64 demos on the Dreamcast (very slowly) than to actually hook up a real N64 and play actual games on it? What's the purpose of playing Saturn games on the Dreamcast when the real Saturn is so easily attainable?

The usual answer to questions like these when asked on this site is "because you can". I think that's a bullshit answer; I personally see projects like these as a complete waste of time, and wonder what all those programming man-hours could have gone to instead. Something far more useful than this, I'm sure.

The article points to some chihiro specs and here are some X-Box specs.

Just from looking at these specs, we can note that the hardware is extremely similiar in both, while the only significant difference being that Chihiro uses Sega's proprietary GD-ROM as a data strorage/access medium, and X-Box uses a DVD medium.

From the interview:
Technically, it hasn't been an entirely painless process, however, with the Chihiro board's higher specification understandably causing a few headaches when it came to squeezing the game into the constraints of a console.

I just don't get it... how are there higher specfications if the memory is the same, the bandwidth is identical, and the video gpu used is the same as well? Something fishy about this... but who am I to judge, I wish they would elaborate more on the apparant struggles of porting from Chihiro to X-Box in the future, so there isn't any confusion :-)

Lately I keep seeing claims that Sega's last custom arcade hardware was the Naomi1. But unless I am massively mistaken/insane, Sega has created at least a couple of new hardware platforms since then, the Naomi2 (Virtua Fighter 4) being the most prominent and profitable. Hikaru is another one.

Is this just seeing some shoddy games journalism (oops, I repeat myself)? Or I am missing something?

(Gamespot reported that this was "first new Sega hardware since Naomi1", too - of course, they suggested that a 'Super Dreamcast' could be made out of the new Sammy Atomiswave arcade hardware, not knowing that the Atomiswave is basically just a slightly tweaked Dreamcast, strictly sub-Naomi1 level, so what can you expect?)

Lately I keep seeing claims that Sega's last custom arcade hardware was the Naomi1. But unless I am massively mistaken/insane, Sega has created at least a couple of new hardware platforms since then, the Naomi2 (Virtua Fighter 4) being the most prominent and profitable. Hikaru is another one.

Is this just seeing some shoddy games journalism (oops, I repeat myself)? Or I am missing something?

(Gamespot reported that this was "first new Sega hardware since Naomi1", too - of course, they suggested that a 'Super Dreamcast' could be made out of the new Sammy Atomiswave arcade hardware, not knowing that the Atomiswave is basically just a slightly tweaked Dreamcast, strictly sub-Naomi1 level, so what can you expect?)

Essentially a bare-bones ( not even Naomi ) Dreamcast config. Not surprising, considering that several Neo-Geo games were released on Dreamcast hence they already have experience with the platform.

Don't throw away your Dreamcasts just yet :)

Atari tried to put this technology into arcades, with Race Drivin' Panorama. There were 3 and 5 screen versions, but only prototypes existed. Check some nice photos and specs here and here

The 'Atomis engine' is just new arcade hardware, a la the NeoGeo. Nothing fighting game specific. I believe it is just a slightly modified Sega Naomi system (which powered the first Guilty Gear X, among dozens of other games like Crazy Taxi). In fact, it looks like it is just a less powerful (!) version, roughly equivalent to a stock Dreamcast. Bizarre that they would use something like that - the Naomi can't be that much more expensive, especially now. Perhaps Sega didn't want to license something completely equivalent to their system? Either way, an excellent system in terms of price/performance, but nothing too advanced, either.

(If you look at that page, the Dolphin Blue game is apparently some kind of spiritual successor to Metal Slug. Very cool. What is also pretty cool is that since DC/Naomi emulators are getting close to primetime, Atomiswave should also be easily doable. Bad for business perhaps, but I know the odds of me seeing a new arcade machine like that around here is frighteningly low. Home ports would also be very welcome...)

And I forget the exact details, but you are correct that the people involved with the KOF series currently are Korean. The developers (Eolis?), maybe? And I do think they did a pretty nice visual job on the 2k3 version - it just feels a little faster and more exciting to me than other games in the series.

The 'Atomis engine' is just new arcade hardware, a la the NeoGeo. Nothing fighting game specific. I believe it is just a slightly modified Sega Naomi system (which powered the first Guilty Gear X, among dozens of other games like Crazy Taxi). In fact, it looks like it is just a less powerful (!) version, roughly equivalent to a stock Dreamcast. Bizarre that they would use something like that - the Naomi can't be that much more expensive, especially now. Perhaps Sega didn't want to license something completely equivalent to their system? Either way, an excellent system in terms of price/performance, but nothing too advanced, either.

(If you look at that page, the Dolphin Blue game is apparently some kind of spiritual successor to Metal Slug. Very cool. What is also pretty cool is that since DC/Naomi emulators are getting close to primetime, Atomiswave should also be easily doable. Bad for business perhaps, but I know the odds of me seeing a new arcade machine like that around here is frighteningly low. Home ports would also be very welcome...)

And I forget the exact details, but you are correct that the people involved with the KOF series currently are Korean. The developers (Eolis?), maybe? And I do think they did a pretty nice visual job on the 2k3 version - it just feels a little faster and more exciting to me than other games in the series.

PPC hasn't been emulated previously because there hasn't been any demand for it.

I had a go on this ages ago, it was my dream! It cost a lot as arcades were at the time but not so much now. Loved it, wish I'd had a few more goes.

Here is good link!

Of course the targets of these remakes are the old school player, don't think the palyer of the newest generations will lose they sleep for Space Harrier or Golden Axe... well the point is that any player who ever had a nostalgic crisis already got and installed Mame or just another emulator out of the zillions available on the net...

of course there's the rom's IP issue... but well, I can't really figure out how many people would erase the rom of Golden Axe and buy the "slap in the face" PS2 remake.

I'm surprised more companies don't do it

More companies do release arcade hardware similar to their home hardware. I think just about every console going back to the NES has had an arcade equivalent. Naomi, for example, was Sega's hardware platform that was very similar to the Dreamcast. Sony teamed with Namco to do an arcade version of the PSX, and I believe there's also a PS2 platform as well.

This site does a good job of going over hardware platforms used by Sega, Namco and Konami. I think there may be info on the XBox platform if it's being used by any of those companies.

Actually, Namco has a virtual sword fighting game called Mazan : Flash Of The Blade. It's not force feedback, but you get this stub of a sword and you swing it at bad guys on the screen. It's pretty neat to watch.

As for arcade games having tough times, Namco and Konami are keeping them alive by offering games that aren't quite as good on consoles/PCs as in the arcade. Examples of games like this are Dance Dance Revolution (unless you build your own hard pad, it's not the same as the arcade), Percussion Freaks (play drums, like DDR except with a drum set), and Para Para Dancing (wave your arms around). Yes, arcades aren't as popular as they used to be, but that doesn't mean the arcade is dead yet or that they're crappy.