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Xbox Coming to Arcades
Stanl writes "The San Jose Mercury News reports that Microsoft will be taking Xbox technology into arcades, including a statement that, 'arcade titles influence the kind of console games that fans buy.' That is an interesting unattributed observation."
They do? Funny, I think I remember hearing that the home console had killed the video arcade. I smell desperation in the XBox division...
I get the feeling there's not going to be an XBox 2. Either someone at Microsoft will see the light, or a group of shareholders will, and they'll raise a stink...
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What arcades?
Of the 5 malls in my neck of the woods only one has an arcade (Sega City). There's one nightclub with a gameroom, and a handful of putt-putt golf courses. Oh, and a Chuck E Cheese, which hasn't gotten a new video game in well over 3 years.
Midway just got out of the biz altogether.
Or does Microsoft just want to be the next Sega?
Arcades were the thing during the 80's when the newest technology really needed to fit in something the size of a refrigerator but kids barely go to arcades anymore. Nearly all the ones in my area have gone way under and I think microsoft is living in a dream world.
If religous zealots don't believe in Evolution, then why are they so worried about bird flu?
Arcade games by there very nature are different from many console games. Arcade games are very time limited as you usually have a bunch of people standing in line waiting. Console games don't have that limitation.
Many arcade to console conversion were very successful. I can't think of one where a console game made it into the arcades.
I would have thought that Microsoft was going after the 20-something group, with titles like Halo and Morrowind. Maybe even with mind-numbingly dumb kill 'em all games like Bloodwake, because god knows I like senseless violence. But when was the last time anyone my age has been in an arcade, besides the occasional "I'm bored, downtown, have an hour to kill, and the arcade is around the corner" kind of visits? Usually by the time you hit about 16 and can drive to places you really want to go, you stop going to the arcade.
BTW, if it hasn't already happened...FIRST POST!
Good luck to them since arcades in malls are becoming an endangered species. The one in my town shut down about a year ago, and I don't remember seeing more than 5 people at a time in it years prior to it's demise.
... when the "good" games were .50 to start and .25 to continue, and the really really good games were .75 to start. Nowadays games are .75 (average) and not really any different/more enjoyable than the run of the mill PC/console game.
I used to spend alot of time (and money) going to arcades, but now I'd rather spend 40-50 bucks and buy a game than 1.00 to play one for 3 minutes.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
So I guess that arcades and arcade machines aren't dead after all?
This is a happy moment for me, but I can't really think of any games currently on Xbox that would translate very well into an arcade experience. Maybe Panzer Dragoon, the platformers, and a few racing games that, while I don't personally find them all that interesting, tend to be popular in arcades. Is this just a continuation of this article involving Sega though? Or maybe they're just going to use MAME! Realistically, without Sega's support, what would Microsoft have to offer for the arcade world?
You're only as smart as your brain.
Given that home games consoles provide much the same compute resource as arcade machines what is the added value of an arcade? I think there are two 'extras' which arcades provide.
1. Modern arcade machines tend to be more like fairground rides with hydraulics to augment the game experience and probably better screens
2. An audience.
I can see kids refining their skills at home and then going head-to-head in the arcades. Integrate this with on-line gambling and we may see a return of the gladiatorial arena
-- "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!"
I don't know why no one else (who comments) sees how this works.
The idea behind this is that MS can have some development house make/market an arcade game that is designed from square one to work on an XBox.
Everybody gets hooked on the arcade game, then when the XBox/Console version is released and people go home and buy it - including buying an Xbox if they haven't already. It's pretty much the same as exlcusive titles, but people get to "Try Before They Buy" at the arcade.
-Andrew
I hate replying to myself, but another problem with arcades is that alot of them (and this isnt really new) went from quarters to tokens. At the start, it was 4 quarters = 4 tokens, and if you bought like, 10 dollars worth they gave you extra. Then it went 4 quarters = 3 tokens, and they upped the amount of tokens needed to play. Now they have "credit cards" that you "buy" and add money to, and games are like, .35 or .65 cents a credit (which means that you'll almost ALWAYS have a balance leftover, so you put more money in to recharge it)...
Now, I can understand that they want to keep their customers, and if you can only spend the "money" in one establishment well you're not going to "hop ship", but there are many times that I've decided not to spend a few bucks in arcades, simply because I wasnt sure how much time I had, and I wasnt going to get stuck with useless tokens (think, at a mall or whatever that is not close to home that you go to maybe 1 time a year if that, or possibly the first and last time you go there for whatever reason)...
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
They are losing customers because of their business plan, yes. But what Microsoft sees here is a way to CHANGE the arcade business plan.
Now that a inexpensive console can play multiple games at high quality, why not build these consoles into boxes that immerse people well (decent speakers and control schemes).
Then, with your new super hot games, leave the console boxes to arcades with the promise to upgrade them (ala Dell with corporations) and release the new discs to ARCADE OWNERS a couple months before the general public - say while you were building up your CD stock immediately after the CD went gold.
You'd have people flocking to see the new releases they can't yet own.
Sound familiar anyone? It's the EXACT SAME MODEL that DVD and VHS rental stores use via the RIAA and movie companies.
Stop being so closeminded.
Microsoft is in fact very much the 800 pound gorilla when they have a chance to use their Windows/Office monopoly against you but when they have to go stand on equal footing with someone and compete they are so friggin lost it's really kind of comical.
At one time I think this (Arcade games influencing what kind of console games people bought) was true but this is grossly out of date IMO. If anything then today it's the reverse of that.
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is the only arcade out here that is not losing money hand over foot. The best part is they won't let anyone under 21 in except for dinner with their parents. When ever I get the yen for a console game fix I go there. It never lasts more than an hour, then I can get back to some serious gaming on my PC. Someday consoles will get there, maybe soon, but they aren't there now. Just check out EQ, or UT or any so-called cross-port game. Though Mario Kart is a kick in the a$$.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
The article states that Sony and Nintendo are also working on arcade versions of their systems. Is anyone crying doom and gloom over this and claiming that Sony and Nintendo are idiots who must be desperate? No? Okay, why is (almost) everyoine saying that about Microsoft?
Do I need to even ask? No. I don't. It's the typical unthinking knee-jerk "M$ is a bunch of stupid poopy-heads and Bill Gate$ eats babies!" panty twsiting that goes on here every time a article about Microsoft gets posted.
Is the arcade scene dead? In the USA it pretty much is. But it's alive and well in Japan, the one market where the XBox is not doing well at all. The arcade scene is good enough in Japan that Sony and Nintendo also think it's an idea worth looking into.
I'm not a pro-Microsoft nutjob. They do lots of things that piss me off (XP is a disgrace, Media Player 9 is evil beyond compare, MS Bob was a joke, I dislike their embrace and extend policy) but this automatic anti-MS spew is laughable at best and sadly pathetic at worste.
By now most of you mods have decided to mod me down as a troll. But take a momet to think about this. Are we doing ourselves any favors by acting like jackasses every time Microsoft does something?
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
The argument that they will be trying to generate interest for the home versions of these arcade games just doesn't hold water. If you are trying to generate interest in your product, you should probably try to reach as many people as possible for as little money as possible. The number of times that a person visits an arcade in a month has got to be low. Why take such a financial risk to generate hype for such a small audience?
Watch MS write it off on their taxes like they did with XBOX development. "Yeah, we're new to the biz. We had no idea Motocross Mania: ARCADE was going to bomb." This just sounds like planned failure from the get go.
Marketing, man. Marketing. They knew what they were doing.
Murphy was an optimist.
Granted, the mouse that Microsoft makes is of equal quality to any other name brand mouse of reasonable quality I can think of. Let us go back to the days when each system you bought came with a mouse that was slightly different though.
You've seen them of course. Compaq mice, Gateway mice, and HP mice. Many others and most, if you flipped them over were made by Logitech as I recall. Not all of course but many of them.
Then a few years ago something happened that was worth noticing. Computer makers (practically all of them) began throwing in a standard Microsoft mouse (sometimes with their name on it "DELL by Microsoft" is sitting on the one right in front of me at this moment, often in the color the CPU and keyboard were made in).
I personally don't think that all these computer makers started doing this because the Microsoft mouse was better than the one they were using before this time. It seems unlikely that they would all come to this conclusion at the same time.
I think it's possible that the Microsoft mouse was cheaper maybe or that they were going to get a better deal on their Windows licenses if they went that way.
This is what I suspect. I of course have no evidence of this but I know that I used a couple of different brands of mice in the years before I started getting handed mountains of MS Mice every time we bought computers where I work. Then after a while I got to where nothing else felt quite right. I actually tried to go back and use one of my old Logitech 3-button mice once and found the experience almost painful. Is it muscle memory? I don't know.
Anyway I'm thinking that if the MS Mouse was cheaper than it was in all likelyhood cheaper because Microsoft was losing money on it (which they could afford to do thanks to their enormous income from Windows) or it was in some way negotiated as part of the license deal. They make a good mouse true but I don't think for a second they have the share of the "mouse market" they posess right now without their income from Windows and/or their leverage with the PC makers.
Maybe that's just part of the present day "don't trust MS in anything thinking" but it feels right.
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