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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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...an 80" BSOD!
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
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.
...you must agree to the game's EULA-- after you put the quarter in!
~Philly
... 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.
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 can see why they thought of it.
It is black-letter fact, the arcade is dead. Has been dead, in fact, for a long time. From the article itself:
Eddie Adlum, publisher of arcade magazine RePlay, said arcades have been in decline ever since the rise of console gaming. About a decade ago, he estimates there were 10,000 arcades, but that number has since dropped to about 3,000. Hit games such as ``Ms. Pacman'' once sold 100,000 machines, but today, typical hits sell maybe 4,000 to 6,000 units, Adlum said.
However, there is something very similar to the arcade which is growing moderatealy well both in the U.S. and especially in Asia. It's a kind of mutation of the "internet cafe." It seems, while kids won't plunk down dollars to play conventional arcade games, they will go out and "rent" a PC to play Counterstrike or Starcraft for an hour or three. Multiplayer games, it seems, still have draw. And thus the article goes on...
Lately, the rise of online gaming, especially in Asia, has transformed many arcades from stand-alone machines to networks of connected computers where players can play against each other or anyone else over the Internet. That transition plays to the Xbox's strength, since it is primed for broadband gaming, and it also plays to Microsoft's strong relationship with Sega, which is a big supporter of online gaming.
So they think they will somehow tap into this growing phenomenon, instead of merely blowing 50 million or so producing expensive collectors items. I'm not holding my breath, but anything is possible, I guess.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
Microsoft announced today that XBox technology would be a federal requirement for all licensed preschools. FCC Chairman Michael Powell explained that this was a good decision, a consensus decision and had no political component to it whatsoever. After everyone stopped laughing, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer explained that exposing preschoolers to the technology now ensured a steady revenue stream for Microsoft. Ballmer then announced that the first game available will be "Dancing Monkeyboy". Players will jump around trying to collect developers. If they sweat too much, have a coronary or get hit with the dreaded "Monopolist" tag, they lose.
Microsoft is always trying to undermine their competition, and they do that by copying what other companies do and try to saturate the market..
Nintendo/Namco/Sega - have their Triforce arcade system based on gamecube arcitecture, and I think Microsoft is just scared and lost, as usual.
I don't think they actually have a solid plan for what they are doing- just release a few arcade games to push out Triforce's dominance, and in turn take away some thunder from beaneath the wings of Nintendo.
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
Dreamcast was developed from the Naomi technology available in arcades in the first place.
;)
This is the reversed process. And add the fact that the hardware in the XBOX isn't new or revolutionary at all. Is basically Intel x86 + nVidia + hardware locks + a now-crappy HD + a huge ugly case. Anyway I love some of the games
Can anyone confirm this?
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.
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.
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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