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Activision Wants To Bring Guitar Hero To Arcades
dlapikin writes "Activision is preparing a deal with Konami and Raw Thrills to bring Guitar Hero to arcades worldwide as soon as 2009. It looks to be a great fusion of their current Guitar Hero III axe and World Tour. 'Some features have been streamlined, however, like character customization. Raw Thrills doesn't want people obsessing over the hair color of their on-screen rock star. But one important feature that has remained is downloadable content. Raw Thrills has the ability to push new songs to "Guitar Hero Arcade" through the Internet. Owners of the machines can pick and choose which of the new songs to add to the cabinet.'"
Look into the series GuitarFreaks, a Konami Bemani title. Popular in arcades in Asia, but can be found worldwide. The latest few titles also link with PercussionFreaks [also known as DrumMania]. GuitarFreaks doesn't have a home version though.
Of course, when you compare songs between Freaks and Heroes, they're completely different. But the basic gameplay principle is the same.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
What arcades??? Every one around here closed down years ago.
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
When I was growing up, I learned to play Street Fighter without the high-punch button. Why? Because every damn machine in the world has a broken high punch button.
I don't see a thin plastic guitar boding any better.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
The game Guitar Hero was based on, GuitarFreaks has been in arcades for 10 years now.
It is pretty hard to find in American arcades, though. The only place I've seen it was in a Golf Land in San Jose -- but then again I haven't spent much time in arcades since childhood.
At any rate, it is a bit surprising it took 'em so long to come around to building an arcade unit, given the success GuitarFreaks has had in Japan.
My original reaction to the headline was "Why? Doesn't everyone who cares own this?"
But if the owners of the cabinet can download new songs... then Activision can get free advertising for new songs if people see/hear them in arcades at movie theaters and so forth.
But for Activision, it's even better then free advertising: people will pay them to play it. Combined with the fact that the price to play a song will likely be far less then buying the song through DLC for the console versions, it is in that way it's almost like players can demoing the song at an arcade, then download it at home if they liked it.
What's an arcade?
if we all click "-" will that make the dumb stories go away?
You don't see many arcades around anymore but the hot spots now (AFAIK) are Family Entertainment Centers (i.e. Go-Carts, Put-Put-Golf, Water Parks). All FEC's have an inhouse repair technician because ALL peripheral devices (such as Guns, Rifles, etc...) get hammered on.... I don't see how the Guitar could possibly hold up... Can anyone say "Carbon Fiber"?
Gravity!... It's not just a good idea... It's the Law!
LOL, Street Fighter? By the time that came out arcades were dead and home computers ruled.
Real arcade players play Karate Champ and don't need no stink'in buttons at all!
Honestly,last one in my area shut down about 5 years ago. Though maybe they are still popular in certain areas, I haven't seen an arcade in years.
I don't know if I would trust any of their joysticks. If the bar gets really heavy use, I wouldn't be suprised if somebody's puked all over at least one or two of them, and I wouldn't want to do any quarter forward circles on those...
Does your town not have a miniature golf course? The one in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has an arcade between a miniature golf course and go-kart track, all under the same "Putt-Putt" brand that davcorp mentioned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_Queer-o
Hopefully Activision will pay their bill from Harmonix before releasing anymore spin-offs of the Guitar Hero series.
You know, there are many ways to discuss the death of arcades; the speed of home consoles, the lack of socialization skill among the current generations, etc... I prefer to tell of the death of arcades in a more personal way.
It was the summer of '69... or maybe it was more recent. Anyway, I wanted to play a game of Silent Scope. Now, unless you have been under an arcade rock, you know what this contraption is.
It is the most wonderful piece of gaming which can never be replicated properly in a home console. You play as a sniper, taking out baddies at fairly long distances. The kick is the implementation of it. That is where the game really shines.
The game gives you a replica of a generic sniper rifle. It has a scope on it, hence the name Silent Scope, inside this wonderful input device's scope is a second screen. On this second screen, you see a zoomed view of wherever you are pointing the rifle. This is about the closest I have come to seeing shooting replicated in an arcade.
Needless to say, you keep one eye open to watch the large screen in front of you, while you use your other eye to peer through the scope to sight in on your target. The way you play is exactly like shooting a real rifle, except, instead of targets, you are shooting at 3d baddies.
This machine ate gobs of quarters out of my pockets. I was grateful they were gone, it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. I got to play a game which I was addicted like a meth addict to, and the arcade got my money. I thought nothing could spoil my utopia.
Then, one day, after a rousing game, coming off with the high of almost beating the game on hard, I was walking down the boardwalk. The sun was bright and the wind was blowing off the ocean. Something got caught in my nose.
I went to wipe it off and got whiff of a horrid smell from somewhere. Now, this being the boardwalk, there are a ton of awful smells to go around. So, I went to scratch again, and realized it was coming from my hand. I took another whiff.
Sure enough, someone stinkpalmed the darned Silent Scope rifle.
I was shocked, horrified, felt a little violated. I ran to the nearest bathroom and washed off.
To this day, I still can't bring myself to play that game of roulette. I just don't trust those dirty kids anymore.
Too bad, I really loved Silent Scope. Maybe I will have to buy my own, so I don't have to worry about that. Maybe when I have enough money.
That is my story of the last time I played an arcade game...
I just can't imagine what the dirt balls would do with a guitar if they could do that to a Silent Scope rifle.
One Token Ring to Rule them All, One Search Engine to Find Them, One WAN to bring them in, and TCP/IP Bind them...
I've never seen one in 25 years of life. (minus the sort of stuff you see at places for little kids' birthday parties)
They should just let people plug in some form of memory card to load their own custom designed players. Neo Geo used to have card slots way back in the day. They could even let people bring controllers like some Tekken 5 machines I've seen. Though I guess you could make a custom cheat controller?
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
that doesn't even make any sense.
It is the most wonderful piece of gaming which can never be replicated properly in a home console. You play as a sniper, taking out baddies at fairly long distances. The kick is the implementation of it. That is where the game really shines.
The game gives you a replica of a generic sniper rifle. It has a scope on it, hence the name Silent Scope, inside this wonderful input device's scope is a second screen. On this second screen, you see a zoomed view of wherever you are pointing the rifle. This is about the closest I have come to seeing shooting replicated in an arcade.
Could it be approximated on something like a Nintendo DS, with the top screen showing the whole scene and the touch screen showing the zoomed-in view?
At large sponsored events like baseball games, I've seen a Guitar Hero 3 setup with two controllers and a PS3. There are plenty of crowds around it, but one of the guitars is invariably broken and unplayable. Microswitches do not have an infinite lifespan, especially if you are really thrashing on them - like, you know, a guitar.
That guitar would get destroyed in a week; just like other arcade controls are. That's one reason why arcades have declined so much in the States; the equipment can't handle the uncaring abuse of the average arcade-goer.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
I went to some Arcade shops recently that had a mini-stage with Guitar Hero III playing. It was more expensive than most other games, but still great.
The guitar were very heavy, clearly custom made for it with a case that was hard plastic covering what I think was wood, or made MDF. You could play 1 song for the price of one coin. I do think they hacked some ps2 with custom software to make it work correctly, but I do not know exactly.
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
I have zero problem with this idea, being a huge GH and RB fan. But, ARCADES?? Do they even still exist?
I'm in my mid-30's, and I grew up in arcades... some of my favorites memories involve arcades. In fact, in my early 20's I was an arcade machine service tech, so I have a lot of experience in arcades.
But, my kids barely know what an arcade is, and they certainly aren't begging me to take them to any. I can't imagine they are much different than most kids today who have all the games at home.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa