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Games Entertainment

Japanese Arcade Scene Still Going Strong 29

Posted by CowboyNeal from the 1ups-credits-and-tokens dept.
Milktoast writes "An English teacher in Japan is writing about the thriving Japanese Arcade scene at Joystick101.org. He talks about new trends in a culture that hasn't abandoned the arcade as a venue." Maybe it's just me, but I've only been in a handful of domestic arcades that impressed me. I don't know if it's a cultural diffference to blame, but Japanese arcades also seem to look like there's something cooler going on, like the prizes for redemption games. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.
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Japanese Arcade Scene Still Going Strong More

Japanese Arcade Scene Still Going Strong

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  • I can't help but wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lendrick ( 314723 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @02:37PM (#6133932) Homepage Journal
    Maybe Japanese arcades have games that let you keep playing if you're good, rather than charging you two dollars for half a minute of crappy racing.
    • You've hit the nail on the head there..corporate greed has killed the Arcade scene. I was in a Jillian's (Its a arcade/Bar here in the Baltimore/DC area) the other day and decided to play one of the new super high tech racing games with their ultra realistic physics and big screen tv in front of you. I hopped in and saw how many points it took and it came to $3 (this is another grievence I have with these kinds of places, you have to buy cards and load them with points so when you are at the machine it do
    • While I miss arcades - I just can't bring myself to shell out $1-$2 to play a game for a few minutes... when I can turn around and buy the exact same game for a console or my PC... for 20-30 times as much - but play it as much as I like with friends/family.

      I do miss the arcade... and have even dreamed of opening a small MAME cabinet arcade... not that I have the resources at hand... but I can dream. ;)

  • I blame the prices (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Man In Black ( 11263 ) <ze-ro@shaEINSTEINw.ca minus physicist> on Friday June 06, 2003 @02:43PM (#6133985) Homepage
    I stopped playing pinball games once they went up to $0.50 per play, and many arcade games are $1 to play... that's just way too much, considering that you're usually killed off after a few minutes once you miss a checkpoint or get to the third character who uses every cheap tactic the AI can muster. I used to love arcades back in the day where I could play Moon Patrol for a good half hour on a quarter, but I simply can't afford to spend enough to learn all the moves in a fighting game, or where to sit to avoid the bosses bullets in the latest shoot 'em up... especially when I can play games that are just as good at home.
    • I simply can't afford to spend enough to learn all the moves in a fighting game, or where to sit to avoid the bosses bullets in the latest shoot 'em up... especially when I can play games that are just as good at home.

      With fighting game the idea seems to be buying the console version, playing it at home and learning the moves and techniques, then going to the arcade and playing it against other people. Most fighter fans only think of the 1-player mode as a training mission anyway.
    • I second this comment. Years ago, a friend and I played Area 51, which was new at the time, for ten dollars worth of quarters (well, $0.25 tokens) at $0.75/play and $0.50 to continue. For those ten dollars, we went through the game six times start to finish.

      Recently I found the game in an arcade and coerced a friend into playing. Aside from costing $0.75per play or continue (what happened to old games getting cheaper?), the difficulty was turned up as hard as it would go. Despite being a crack shot and mem

  • You romancer you... (Score:3, Funny)

    by fiftyLou ( 472705 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @02:45PM (#6134010)

    The old man playing had a cigarette in one hand and was pressing the button as fast as he could with the other, making the on screen breast flop around. As the score for his jiggling got tallied up our eyes met and we both smiled.

    Right out of a Meg Ryan movie I tell ya ;-)
  • Only good arcade in Florida is Disney Quest. I usually find anything Disney to be boring as hell but you can't go wrong with a 5 floor arcade building. I'd be willing to bet if there were more of those around the country people would show more interest in arcades. Paying an entry fee somehow makes me feel more at ease than popping a quarter in every time.
    • They were originally gonna build one in Philly too.. oh well.

      Very nice place though.

    • Rocky's Replay in Casselberry (Semoran Blvd) is awfully good, but they allow smoking until the local ordinance kicks in an bans it. I recommend it. They have really good Bemani games, good simulator games, and good pinballs. They also serve refreshments.

      Florida's a big place, explore! (Try XS, too, but I haven't been there yet)

  • Gross generalizations ahead (Score:4, Insightful)

    by saladpuncher ( 633633 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @02:56PM (#6134082) Homepage
    I was in Japan through 97-98 and noticed two things that would explain why their arcade scene isnâ(TM)t dieing. The first is that the Japanese people like to do things in groups and going to an arcade is a fun activity that can be done with a lot of your friends. So why havenâ(TM)t home console system killed the arcade places like they have in the states? Well, that brings up my second point which is that they tend to keep visits to other peopleâ(TM)s houses down to a minimum. Every time you go to someoneâ(TM)s place you have to bring a gift (omochi, green tea, etc) and it gets to be a pain. Group gaming activities at home seem to be rare in Japan which keeps the arcades thriving. Of course I could be wrong :)

  • Onscreen breast? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DavidLeblond ( 267211 )
    The old man playing had a cigarette in one hand and was pressing the button as fast as he could with the other, making the on screen breast flop around. As the score for his jiggling got tallied up our eyes met and we both smiled. Then he had to look back at the screen because the mini game had ended and the mahjong game he was playing had begun again.


    What game is THAT? Wario Ware XXX?

  • Nickel Arcades (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Hadlock ( 143607 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @03:23PM (#6134262) Homepage Journal
    has anyone else seen these? I live in the dallas area, and there's been one in Garland called Nickel Rama for as long as anyone knows, and just recently there was another Nickle arcade put in Plano, called House of Nickles. How they work is it's like a normal arcade, generally with 2nd run to fairly primitive (pac man, early 90's racing games) arcade machines, toss in some skeeball and skill games with tickets, a DDR clone, airhockey, and a real live pinball machine, they all take nickles rather than quarters for credits, so you end up spending about 10 cents (2 credits) for most games. Nickle Rama even has the Ferarri Challenge 355 game (racing game with three screens, clutch, and 6 speed shifter, real classy). There's a $1.95 cover charge for the whole day (tax included, so you get a nickle back, nice.) Also, I think they crank down the difficulty settings (if there are any), as $2 will let you play for about 2 hours. For $7 total, you can spend a good part of the day there. The one in Garland is always packed, and I suspect House of Nickles will be seeing some serious buisness by the end of the summer, even if they are across the street from Game Wyze.
    • They had one near where I lived in San Diego County (called Wonderland iirc). They also tended to have games that were new (or at least nearly new), and the games ranged from free (for the old games like Pac-Man and such) to $0.20 (for the newest games, especially the racers and others that take up excessive floor space). Over time they stopped getting new games as quickly, though, and raised the price for adults (and everyone over 13 iirc).

      It was a nice place when I was in high school, but it kindof died
  • These guys [chuckecheese.com] might be exactly what you are looking for!
  • Though now the only one left near me is at a movie theatre.. All the games are at least 5 years old, and they have no classics, except the old TMNT arcade game. They do have Time Crisis, but the calibration is off on the gun...
  • The only arcade that I know that really works here in Ottawa is at the University of Ottawa. The games are $0.25 to play, the pool is $0.75 per game or you can rent a snooker table or ping pong table for $5/hour. For students this is much better than paying $1 per game like is common at other arcades in town. The arcade is owned by the student organisation.

    The most popular game there is Soul Calibur 2. It's a great arcade game since we all compete against each other. I'll go in and (after waiting for
  • I never saw the benefit of arcade games. I think it stemmed from a personal experience I had as a kid. We used to go to the local mall, and I would always get sucked into the arcade to play my personal favorite game 'super off road'. The game had three steering wheels, so three could play at once. I would drop $2 every time we went in. One week, I decided I really wanted to stop getting creamed by the grey truck that always seemed to have an unfair advantage. I saved for a week, and then deposited my
    • The reason why pinball games are steadily getting rarer and rarer (and thus more expensive) are numerous.

      First, it's because they so rarely get made any more. South Park and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace are the last two made in recent years that I know of and considering Phantom Menace is now several years old, pinball machines are getting made at the rate of "one every few years" (sorry, too lazy to look up when Phantom Menace was released).

      The other, and more significant reason is that pinball repair
      • I agree with you here. It's very unfortunate. I used to play Jurassic park when that first came out as a pinball machine. After a few weeks at the local movie theater, the T-Rex head stopped functioning. To my knowledge it was never fixed and has since been replaced with whatever version of mortal/teken they are on now.

        I just have so much more respect for pinball than I do for most other video games. There is real physics at work, real 'pinball skill'. Knowing when to hit the ball and when to 'nudge'

  • The mall near my house when I was growing up had an aracde from the Dream Machine franchise. Generally speaking, it was a pretty cool place. There were all sorts of flashing screens from every genre of gaming goodness; I could pop from GI Joe [www.mame.dk] to Final Fight [www.mame.dk] to Operation Wolf [www.mame.dk] -- if I was really lucky and the Neo Geo machine was on the floor that weekend -- Samurai Shodown 2 [www.mame.dk]. For a kid whose world revolved around video games it was Xanadu, baby.

    Now I go there and a part of me wants to weep. Instead of a

  • I have an import copy of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 for the Dreamcast. The point system used to buy hidden features in the games requires you not only have network points, but versus points as well. The versus points come from plugging your VMU to an Arcade version of the game and fighting other players there. Much to my chagrine, I would have to fly to Japan to fully unlock my games. Is there anything like that here in the states? Not that I know of. Just one of those little details that make things fun. P
  • the sky is still blue, the ocean is still wet; join us for full coverage at 11

    ummm, why write _news_ about something that's not changing. nothing _new_ there.

    sure: arcades in japan, wonderful. gee, i hope we get an update next week!!!!!!!!!1111

    will the japanese arcades survive? will the gaming populace of the far east continue to be satiated? you'll just have to wait till next time to find out. (same /. channel, same /. time) :P

  • Mr Do (Score:2, Insightful)

    by SpiritHex ( 443323 )
    Two most impressive arcades I've seen: The lavish one at Piccadilly Circus in London, the gigantic one in Disneyland Florida (felt as big as a football field, a while back). Vegas probably has a few nice ones

    Lately I've been trying some of the older 80-90s arcade classics via MAME, with cheats on, to preview game endings. Suffice to say, most are cheesy, mundane and typo filled :) You get the feeling these games were hastingly designed first as money making scheme, not work of arts. Still, there's quality
  • I distinctly remeber in an Osaka arcade there was one of those "UFO Catcher" type games that allowed you to catch live lobsters for about $5.00 a try.

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