Sega To Take X-Box To Arcades

kikta writes "Well, after our previous speculation about what Sega would do after they got out of the hardware biz, it appears we have our answer. CNN is reporting that they will be producing motherboards to port the Xbox to the arcade. GamePro also weighed in on the announcement."

Comments

Re:Who is making these decisions?

[Ahchay]

Ummm. Have you been to an arcade recently?

After far too many years of formulaic beat 'em up nonsense, there has been quite a resurgence recently in arcade games providing experiences you won't get at home. The best examples of these are games such as Dance Dance Revolution (which although looking like no-one in their right mind would play in public is hugely successful) but head to head racers (daytona is still the no.1 blueprint) and even FPS games (anyone seen SWAT 24/7? Cracking game) are light-years ahead of home consoles - mainly because designers have finally got rid of the up-down-left-right-fire mentality so beloved of the JAMMA era

Arcade designers are, it seems, finally realising that they can't really compete with home consoles on the graphics and sound front and are pretty much returning to root design principles. Make the _game_ different in the arcade; provide controls customised for the game; put players head-to-head; in short give the player something extra!

Or are you intending to buy different controllers for each game you get for the x-box? Your living room is going to be pretty cluttered...

Personally, I think this is great news. The easier arcade games are to produce the better.

An obvious development, back in March!

[AtariDatacenter]

Back in March, I posted this reply to a story about capcom calling it quits. Specifically, I said:

Today, the situation is quite difference. In fact, the X-Box seems to put the final nail in the coffin. Arcade game manufacturers may very well stop creating arcade games on custom hardware. Instead, they'll compile for an X-Box style platform. Why? For the ease of conversion to the home game. That's where the money is. The arcade game is just the 'advertisement' to create the buzz.

I don't pretend to have my finger on the pulse of the arcade industry, but it seemed like an obvious development. There isn't much need to create custom arcade hardware when you've got something like the X-Box that you can develop arcade games on and later port to the home PC (and X-Box game console).

Quite a good strategy, for Microsoft and Sega.

Re:What SEGA SHOULD be doing....

[Cutriss]

SEGA has done two great things for the world. Hedgehogs and driving games. SEGA should do hedgehogs and driving games. Simple as that.

I beg to differ. Watch as I karma-whore my way into greatness by rallying Sega-fanboys and geeks alike by reminding you of Sega's other immense successes:

Phantasy Star series
Alex Kidd series
Shining Force series
NiGHTs Into Dreams
Panzer Dragoon series
Ecco the Dolphin series
Toejam and Earl series
Eternal Arcadia (Skies of Arcadia in US)
Jet Set Radio (AKA Jet Grind Radio)
Virtual On series
Sakura Taisen series
Virtua Fighter series

And then, you have all the *real* old school stuff...Shinobi, Out Run, Space Harrier, Alien Syndrome, Flicky, Bloxeed, Psycho Fox...

Not to mention a wide array of some excellent third party titles that have a significant background history, like Capcom's port of Strider, Radiant Silvergun, all the SNK home ports...The Genesis may have been Sega's highlight in history...but that doesn't mean that everything else they've done was a failure.

Re:Great...

[sharkey]

I wonder if the arcade attendants will need to get MCSE certification...

Speak for yourself. I can't wait for the sit-down, wraparound-sound, motion-simulator versions of Minesweeper and Solitaire to be out. They'll rock the standup version in no time flat!