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Namco Pushes Counter-Strike LAN Centers In Japan

Posted by simoniker on from the special-pacman-appearance-forthcoming dept.

Thanks to GameSpot for their extended four part series discussing Namco's attempt to launch gaming-specific LAN centers as an alternative to arcades in Japan. The company has made moves to "..license Counter-Strike from Valve Software, create a localized version called Counter-Strike NEO for Japanese gamers, and install specially designed [PC setups] running the game in Namco's LEDZone LAN arcades." Although PC gaming is still weak and arcade gaming strong in Japan, Namco has put a lot of effort into these gaming-only PC LAN centers, which even have a "subwoofer mounted flush with the floor in front of each seat... so gamers feel each gunshot and explosion through the soles of their feet." Namco also mentions Counter-Strike NEO shows gradually increasing revenues, as opposed to Japanese arcade games, which "...are most profitable shortly after installation, and then suffer declining revenue until the arcade owner replaces them."

2 of 18 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Used to work at a LAN center... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    The Above-mentioned LAN center chain, which you can find here, is www.battlelan.com. I'm an idiot and forgot to include it in my purposefully anonymous post. :)

  2. We've got it here too by IANAL(BIAILS) · · Score: 3, Informative

    The campus arcade replaced a bunch of it's larger games (DDR and the like) and put in a few rows totaling 30 or so networked computers running CD, Starcraft, Warcraft, Wolf*, etc. It's amazing how busy the place has been since they made the switch. We're even getting high school kids that make the trip out here to play the games... it's funny: I would have thought that by now everyone has a semi-powerful computer and high speed cable connection at home. I guess not!