Future of arcades?

[MTv Dave]

I used to love going to arcades and spending my hard saved pocket money on the latest games that were so far beyond what you could get at home: Street Fighter 2 was a the best, Time Crisis actually had guns, etc, etc...

However, with big-ass HD res TVs and consoles that can drive them these days, I'm sure most people don't bother with them any more. I haven't been to one for a good few years now. But the last time I went I thought why aren't these things pushing new and odd hardware that home gamers won't generally have: proper H pattern gear leavers and clutches on driving games; good guns on sniper and shooting games, but what else? I guess you could go fishing, and the dance mats and guitars seem popular in Japan, but never really took off the same way in the rest of the world.

The 3D TVs I saw the other day would be a great benifit to arcade game makers, but I don't think any have them (odd as they are really cheap and pretty easy to drive on the fly). I think that'd pull me back to them. I wouldn't mind spending a quid on a game with a 3D display and a proper gear leaver system or a good fully auto gun to shoot the bad guys with.

What would pull anybody else back to an arcade?


p.s. Oh, and they'd have to have a "no chav" policy

[Steve_Evil]

They're gonna die out, it used to be that the arcades had much better graphics than home machines and you'd go there to play the games that would arrive on the consoles a year or two down the line. Now they tend to get released almost simultaneously and the home machines are more than a match for any arcade cabinet graphics-wise.

I think if they build on the idea of taking your memory cards from your home consoles and plugging it into the arcade cabinet to both upload your high scores and perhaps pull down some extra content then they might give people more reason to part with their pound coins.

[scorp]

Still some fun arcade games around, namely the ones with physical interfaces like lightguns, punchbags, etc.. Pure stick+6button arcade boxes seem pretty pointless these days when just about anyone can afford a ps2.

[tigger1]

Only good fun to be had these days is things like 4 player Sega Rally type setups, with seat / pedals / wheel. Obviously if they could put a decent game on that kind of set up, and with a realistic feel then it'd be great...but not in an arcade environment - I can see the future more being in "bowling alley" time killing areas, that kind of thing.

Some pubs started to have them in, but I'm not sure that's a good thing.

[Jinx]

The shotguns in house of the dead III still do it for me (wasted a fortune at Centre parks last year - thankfully had my nephew with me or sad 30 year old playing games syndrome would have kicked in)

[BrianTheYank]

Fighting mania will forever live on in my heart

[LilCat]

BrianTheYank said:

Fighting mania will forever live on in my heart

Oh i loved that game!

I used to go with my bro to the arcades to play Tekken! (some 10 years back) Queues would be formed as soon as he was on... He was unbeaten!!

Stupid dancing machine... made me poor. Then the chavs took over and i never stepped foot on one of those machines again! (Those machines were great for keeping fit..)