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Namco Blames Wii for Arcade Closures
milsoRgen noted a story about Namco Bandai is shuttering between 50 and 60 arcades in Japan and blaming the success of the Wii for the closures. "A lot of the types of games that people played at an arcade can now be done at home," said company spokesman Yuji Machida. To be fair they also blame the high cost of gasoline as well.
They blamed me personally for not upselling birthday parties when they closed the one I worked at here in the US.
They all closed here years ago. I think Playstation was blamed at the time, though many probably closed earlier and blamed the Genesis.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
"What are wii going to do?" said the Japanese arcade executive to his robot pet dog.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Dance-pads, guitars, and guns have shown that people are willing to buy alternative input devices of many stripes, which had been a niche for arcades.
Arcades want to survive? Easy, bring back pinball. A real, physical pinball game, not the emulator kind made by GlobalVR.
To be honest, I doubt its the gasoline prices. Allot of arcades over in Japan are usually within walking distance of schools and residental areas. They are just freakishly expensive.
Take the Gundum Pod Game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNSodeMJ2u0
The thing takes 500 Yen. Thats a little more than $4.50 a GAME. Oh and you can't just play it once, you have to play it multipal times to raise your skill so you can get better mechs. Sure it was networked and you could play with other people in pods, but games like this make the PS3 look like a worthy investment.
If they made the games cheaper, I think arcades can last longer there. But I doubt it as most of these "pod" like machines are pricey as it is.
PS - Missed a br:P
I was just thinking lastnight how much I missed the old days of arcades. People gathering around "World Heroes" or "SoulEdge" or better yet "Virtua Fighter" to test our skills. I still haven't beaten "S.T.U.N. runner" (I was so close.) And yes I do blame game consoles. Online game play makes things better.... but it still doesn't compare to walking into an arcade and feeling the tension of arcade battles. =)
As in most religions, it's the followers that turn people off to the religion. And Mac users are the worst.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/shuttering
"To furnish or close with shutters: locked the doors and shuttered the windows."
Sometimes when businesses are closed, they do just that.
I wish I could come up with a real number of arcades open in Japan, but my google-fu is weak today. However, given my experiences there, 50-60 does not sound like a big number of closings...
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
According to Play Meter magazine (the magazine for the arcade/amusement industry), the arcade industry took an even bigger dive in 2007 (from its long decline starting in 1984).
Family Entertainment Centers (FEC) locations were down 60% year-over-year. OUCH!
Computer technology.... just like everyone else is doing....
From the RIAA to my hemorrhoids from sitting down all day.
technology in the computer industry is supposed to make things easier, cheaper and overall better.
So complain about it!
And while you are at it, complain how there is no more horse manure in the streets for the manure sweeps to earn a living by, because of cars.
Surprised they didn't mention on-line gaming really, maybe it's my age but I remember people queing up to play Street Fighter II. People still enjoy the challenge of another person, its just that they are doing it at home.
A thistle is a fat salad for an ass's mouth...
Japan is not the US and the US is not Japan, and may have cultural differences helping it last longer. Though sometimes the two combine.
Pancakes. Oh I blew it.
Arcades can evolve too. The market is there for people who want to rent out movie-theatre sized screens to play multiplayer games. How about an arcade that contains actual consoles where you just bring your memory cards or wiimotes (w/character data on) and just pay a cover charge and for drinks, or for a private room with friends (like billiards) all so you can play with a crowd on a giant screen? I'm sure parents would appreciate the break, and kids can be as loud as they want or game with their friends all night.
There is a giant rift between arcade games and their console counterparts because we cannot exchange character data between them or game on a console vs an arcade cabinet. If we allow this, then the popularity of the living room will also be interchangable with that of the public gaming outlets, and both can coexist and benefit from each other. Perhaps if you visit the arcades you can get the newest demos first, or the arcades can download them for you and burn them on disc and charge a token fee. Wii demos for full games could be distributed exclusively at arcades. There are many opportunities to increase the popularity of both at the same time.
Twinstiq, game news
And considering the high density population their urban centers are known for, one would think a nearby arcade wouldn't be to far away. I'm thinking the Wii might be playing a part in this, but if it is it's merely a blip in the grand scheme of things. As nothing really compares to a well designed arcade machine, no matter how much fun flailing your arms about is in the privacy in your own home.
I just wonder if it's become cost prohibitive to truly innovate (or differentiate yourself) in an arcade machine. Graphics are pretty good these days, I can't see any company willing to invest the money to make an arcade machine truly stand out compared to a GeForce 8xxx or PS3/Xbox. And if you can't win on the graphics front, you have to start doing novelty things like incorporating movement or force feedback, again increasing costs.
It's hard to say, as Japan is such a different beast than the U.S.
But I can say personally I quit going to the arcade when games were no longer 25 or even, 50 cents. I really don't care about paying for the newest hardware, as the newest hardware/graphics doesn't equal the greatest game play. I still play A.P.B. (that top down 2d cop game, where you pull people over and go through the donut shops), and that 2d sidescrollin' X-Men beat-em-up, when I can find them.... Simply because they are the most fun... IMHO
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
Japanese arcades are very different from the US. They always keep up with the latest, usually have multiple people working there at any time, and have clean machines and floors. If a button doesn't respond right you can raise your hand and they'll replace it and give you credit.
The main boost in arcade popularity came with Street Fighter 2. Everyone was playing it, and all the school kids would stop by after school. It also provided an extremely high return rate compared to traditional arcade games where players would play as long as 20 to 30 minutes per game. Two players would go at it and one will surely lose and would only play for about 2 minutes.
The fighting games carried the arcades for a good 5 years. But after that, nothing really matched the popularity and profitability of fighting games. Although extremely popular, the main problem with gambling games at arcades is that it is illegal to gamble. So they are all just playing with tokens that cannot get turned back to cash. Of course, there is real horse racing where gambling is legal, and there are pachinco and slot machine parlors where gambling is also legal. So a lot of private arcades closed fairly quickly once they stopped making much money and turned into pachinco joints.
Namco is actually quite late in closing a lot of their stores. They make a lot of the large arcade games and are a big arcade game manufacturer, so it is understandable that they were a little late to fold, but regardless, arcades closing in Japan is extremely old news. They are also probably just using Wii as a modern excuse, since most arcade games have been ported successfully to non-Wii consoles. The dancing games are a prime example. In fact no arcade to Wii ports really come to mind...
In Japan the pachinco industry is far larger than the video game industry. In 2003, Sammy which sells Pachinco and Slot machines bought out all of Sega's stock.
Just FYI.
Yeah the gasoline argument doesn't really hold water with me either. I spent the Summer in Japan bouncing around the country, and you really don't see cars, let alone parking spots around arcades. You take a freaking train to get everywhere. Driving to an arcade in Japan is pretty superfluous in Japan. All you need to bring is a few thousand yen, and your good to go. It's more likely the best arcades are getting all the business really. Usually I stayed away from Namco's arcades since they usually have the games that are a couple years old, and their UFO catchers in my experience are substantially harder (translation: require more $$$) to win. Find it odd that Sega would be closing arcades though, probably just the under performing ones in bad locations.
Easy, just add some naked highschool girls. And tentacles.
Japanese arcades are WAY different from those in the U.S. Have you ever been to one? Most are divided into two sections, pay-per-play games, and token games.I have yet to see a Japanese Namco arcade made in the last 15 years that wasn't a token-style one.
So anyways, the pay-per-play ones aren't too much different from those here, but of course, you'll never find one under 100 yen. In fact, most of the games are over "standard size"(The size most people think of an arcade game being-these include DDR, Time Crisis, and the like) and require something along the lines of "200 yen to start, 100 per life after that". A bunch include a sort of "memory card" feature, where one buys a credit-card-style piece of plastic(Usually 600 yen or so) that acts as a memory card for one particular game-a feature which I personally used most in playing Ghost Squad-It would keep track of all the weapons you gained, costumes, levels cleared, stats, etc.
I've seen some crazy arcade games over there, including numerous card games where you place your units on some type of special table that reads the cards information, and you move the cards as units of an army to defeat the other player. Popular among the kids is a sort of janken beetle game(Which didn't really catch on here) where you buy cards that contain stats and you slide the card on a machine, you pick rock paper or scissors, and depending on your stats and what you picked, your beetle would proceed to smash his opponent with his horn.
Also dominant there are the pay-per-play(to win) games. Up to half of the entire arcade may be dedicated to the winning of random assortments of stuffed animals-or chips, video games, or just random toys-in games that are almost impossible to win. The Japanese take the crane game to a whole new level.
Then there are the token games. More often then not Namco, there is NO way to win. Seriuosly. Have you seen those frikken things? Basically, you buy tokens(100 yen for 12 or 500 yen for 70, say). And you use them to play games.
To win more tokens.
It is literally an endless cycle of using your tokens in some of the most odd games imaginable to win(or lose and then buy) more tokens to play the games to get more of those god damn tokens. Some of these games are sorta like miniature arcade games where the more tokens you used, the easier it was to "win". Other games include dropping a token into a slot at a certain time to bounce of of certain pins(a la pachinko) onto a continuously sliding back and forth rack of more tokens that, if you are lucky, would be knocked down in part by your certain token. The really "skillful" ones can sit there for hours on end playing and earning tokens, only to lose them in more games trying to get more tokens.
I must admit, I haven't been to an arcade in the U.S. in a while, but I'm sure most of the differences listed here are still true.
I mean, come on, I seriously doubt that ANY U.S. arcade EVER went and got "Typing of the Dead"(Admittedly, it was pretty fun because it still used the standard U.S. keyboard and letters but with Japanese words).
But anyways, this kinda surprised me because usually those places are frikken packed.
Living in Japan, I'd say that the arcade still has a lot of appeal for the younger crowd because of the social aspect (spending time with your friends and not having to be around your family), but the games are definitely feeling their age; Namco isn't making much effort in the innovation or updating graphics department, so it's their own fault.
Unless these are game centers out in the middle of nowhere, blaming the gas prices is total crap, since the trains are unaffected and most kids are going to their local game center by bicycle. Certain shopping malls are indeed out in the suburbs, but again, unless we're talking about the rural countryside here, all of them are within a short walk or bus ride from the station. I'd definitely go with the idea that Namco has been sitting on their coattails and not bothering to bring anything good to the table.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
If you get outside of the urban core, suburban Japan (for example, large parts of Chiba and Saitama prefecture) has become, in the past decade or so, quite like suburban America, where you actually do need a car to get around, and amenities are being built with that assumption.
Sure, there's always a train station in the vicinity of such communities, but those are for commuting in to the city, and not very useful for getting around in the area -- the end of the line is a big urban hub, but most of the stations along the way are the same sort of residential areas, and there's no space within walking distance of the station to support the entertainment and shopping needs of the burgeoning residential populations. So they just do the obvious thing -- rip up the rice paddies and forests and build large shopping malls.
There are now Costcos, Ikeas, and supermalls in the suburban Tokyo area, complete with huge parking lots., multiplex theaters.. and Namco arcades. My girlfriend's family lives in one such area (in Chiba prefecture), and their typical weekend activity is to all get in the minivan and drive to the local Jusco mall for shopping, dining, and games.
I blame Namco for releasing the same regurgitated crap for 25 years.
People certainly won't be going to the arcades for single-player games or palette-swapped sequels to Soul Edge. There's also the ridiculous prices being charged for games - I can tolerate (begrudgingly) paying a dollar for a big game like DDR or Drummania where you actually get 5-6 minutes of play. I can't stand paying that much for a crappy low-res racing game with anime physics and "gone in 60 seconds" difficulty.
There's just no fun in the arcades anymore. It's all been done, and now it's tired. Long gone are the days where people would line up at lunch time to challenge the local Street Fighter champ, or shove two rolls of quarters into Terminator 2 to beat it with a friend. Fact is, most people would rather play those classics than the new garbage that's come out in the last ten years.
What about that coin-eating gem, Dungeons and Dragons Tower of Doom ? That was a blast to play with 3 random strangers... where are those games today ? I don't want to go to an arcade just to get my ass whooped by the inevitable asian black-wannabe kids at some obscure coin-slut game.
The Wii didn't kill Namco, it just made painfully obvious how badly Namco has sucked over the years. Namco died of natural causes.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I used to manage an arcade in the USA. In my arcade, anything on a Sega Naomi system was also being released in near perfect ports for the Sega Dreamcast. And the Dreamcast was simply superb for pirating games off the internet since you didn't even need to modify it in order to play burned games.
So innovation and graphics would have justified the price of playing the arcade machines over playing the game at home. And this was years ago. I can only guess that the problem is worse now with the Xbox and PS3.
The glass is neither half full nor half empty. It is dirty and I don't do dishes!