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Games Software Entertainment Linux

Aruze Develops Linux-Based Arcade Machine System 111

Posted by simoniker from the pervasive dept.
Thanks to GameSpot for its news that Japanese arcade/pachinko giant Aruze has announced a Linux-based arcade game system for Japanese release this year. Apparently: "Aruze plans to release twenty games for the AP-3 by the end of March 2005, and aims to persuade third party publishers to develop games for the board as well", and furthermore: "The company expects the adoption of Linux to cut development costs for software developers... Aruze also cited the system's high versatility and consistent updates as other factors in its decision." It's also pointed out: "Taito announced in June a similar PC-based arcade board named Type-X. In contrast to Aruze's AP-3, however, Taito's board uses a special edition of Microsoft Windows XP."
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Aruze Develops Linux-Based Arcade Machine System More

Aruze Develops Linux-Based Arcade Machine System

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  • Consistent updates (Score:5, Funny)

    by Brento ( 26177 ) * <brento@brentoz a r . c om> on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:11AM (#9957299) Homepage
    "Aruze also cited the system's high versatility and consistent updates as other factors in its decision."

    Consistent updates? Maybe I'm missing something, but it feels like my Windows boxen get security updates at least once a week when the root-of-the-day exploit comes out.

    Oh, you mean that's NOT a selling point? Oh.

  • You don't expect me to believe this?? (Score:4, Funny)

    by PowerBert ( 265553 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:11AM (#9957300) Homepage
    I know Aruze when I see one.

  • well.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by borgdows ( 599861 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:12AM (#9957307)
    nobody will ask if this thing run linux at least!

  • some other companies use linux also. (Score:5, Informative)

    by junkymailbox ( 731309 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:13AM (#9957313)
    all the touchscreens i've seen in sportsbars and etc use stuff made by Merit Industries [meritind.com] and AFAIK they all pretty much use linux.

  • Aruze != Good Games (Score:4, Insightful)

    by oasis3582 ( 698323 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:18AM (#9957338)
    Let's just hope they don't use this technology to make more banal mediocre games like Shadow Hearts for the PS2. Now there's a case of squandered potential...


    Doubt the sequel will be any better.

    • Re:Aruze != Good Games (Score:4, Interesting)

      by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:50AM (#9957546) Journal
      ...more banal mediocre games like Shadow Hearts for the PS2.
      Ever been in a Japanese arcade? Shadow Hearts is nice and soothingly normal compared to the games sou see there. Think 'Extreme beach volleyball' for the Xbox, only more bizarre (in case you don'tt know this one: it's beach volleyball, but you first have to convince your opponents in the game to play with you, by bribing them with gifts & flowers in your hair). Head-to-head pancake baking (I kid you not), shooting elves with crossbows... and those are the games where you can at least understand the objective.
      • Haha wow. No, I have never been to Japan, but I can see the influence of Japanese games (since I import a lot) permeate our videogaming "culture." It always amazes me how games like DOA:BV, 0 Story, etc make it over here. I guess we do have some gems though such as Animal Crossing, Pikmin, etc. All I was trying to say is that this is a big step, but I would feel better if companies other than Aruze were at the helm.
      • The grandparent post was talking about how bad the games are that Azure makes, not necessarily how weird Japanese arcade games are. And a relationship sim isn't that bizarre of a game design, really.

  • Games for Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MurkyGoth ( 690195 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:19AM (#9957347) Journal
    I wonder if they're going to licences the games to run on standard installations? Not free or open source (they've got to make money somehow!) but pre-packaged binaries for the most popular distros. They could also get more revenue by creating 'authentic' arcade gamepads for standard PCs. Imagine being able to (legally) play your favourite arcade games at home!

  • This is pretty cool (Score:5, Interesting)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:19AM (#9957348) Homepage Journal
    Presumably that means we can expect Linux to be garnered with an influx of arcade quality, native games now.
    • Remember the Xbox, a slightly modified pc? How many native xbox titles are converted to the pc, and how long does it take?

      There no way that they will just sell those games for linux pcs. It would be as sensible for them as it would be for nintendo to release their next mario game on ps2...

      • How many native xbox titles are converted to the pc

        General rule: If it's on the Xbox and the PS2 or on the Xbox and the GameCube, then it's almost surely also on the PC. Explanation: If a studio makes an Xbox game, and its publisher doesn't get paid big bucks by Microsoft for a 6-month exclusivity deal, the publisher will usually prod the studio into making a PC port. "It's just a recompile!" they say.

        • It's more than just a recompile right now, but if this microsoft XNA thing (that is the acronym, isn't it?) comes off it will just be a recompile and then you'll see even more crappy PC ports. Even Microsoft can't seem to get it right, Halo was a buggy POS, as fun as it admittedly was when it wasn't exploding.
  • Its beginning to be seen that Linux is making waves all over now. First on Servers, then on PCs, then on mobiles/handhelds, and now as a base OS for a game.

  • imagine (Score:1, Funny)

    by millahtime ( 710421 )
    imagine a beowolf cluster of these....

    And we shall call it an Arcade

  • Finally! (Score:5, Funny)

    by cafard ( 666342 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:24AM (#9957370) Journal
    After all those years of Gauntlet or D&D...
    Nethack: soon in an arcade room near you! :)

    Do you think we'll get a bargain on credits for playing tourists ?

  • Obligatory link (Score:5, Informative)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:29AM (#9957398) Homepage Journal
    Looks pretty good .. Appears to be links to a Linux Package (SDK maybe ?)

    http://www.aruze.com/ir/16_linux/global/info.htm l

    Time to get coding !

    Nick ..

  • Games are what will make Linux succeed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ridgelift ( 228977 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:31AM (#9957413)
    Not everyone will agree with this, but games are what will make Linux succeed as the #1 desktop in the world. When you can buy the same games for Linux that you can for Windows and anyone can install them, there will be a massive push behind Linux as an operating system.

    Games push hardware, which sell more computers, which spur the development of faster machines. Microsoft used to do a good job of releasing bloatware that forced companies to upgrade their work PC to keep doing the same jobs (word processing, spreadsheets, databasing & communication apps).

    If your a Linux fan like me, having a Linux-based arcade machine is a very, very good thing. Linux will definitely succeed in the desktop arena - we have games coming.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @08:09AM (#9957673)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • You're probably right but I don't see why it's that important that Linux is #1 in the world.

        If not #1 at least a bigger chunk of desktop market share would be nice. Imagine if linux increased to 25% of desktops. Hardware manufacturers would be crazy not to develop linux drivers. Desktop software manufactures would be much more likely to do native ports.

        Unfortunately, the major problem here is that, like it or not, Microsoft DirectX provides a more readily available suite of games APIs for developers t
        • What about Nintendo & Sony? They don't exactly use DirectX. Many game companies these days license 3rd party engines that have many rendering paths & input/sound abstraction. Sure some comapnies use DirectX only, but a huge portion doesn't.

          First of all, Nintendo and Sony have fixed hardware platforms, so writing to the hardware is at least a possibility. On a PC it's not a good idea.

          As for the abstraction middleware, stuff like Renderware, Gamebryo (Netimmerse), Unreal, etc. don't actual
      • Not everyone will agree with this, but games are what will make Linux succeed as the #1 desktop in the world. When you can buy the same games for Linux that you can for Windows and anyone can install them, there will be a massive push behind Linux as an operating system.

      Along these lines, I'd love to see a live CD version of Linux (e.g. Knoppix) that contains a collection of the better, easier to use, free Linux games. Even better, several emulators and collections of older games from console or older P

  • Before someone starts to whine... (Score:5, Informative)

    by News for nerds ( 448130 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:31AM (#9957415) Homepage
    Aruze Linux source code site [aruze.com]

    Click "English" in the right to go the English web site for Linux source code distribution.
  • Wow. Somebody running XP just to play games? Sounds like they've got some /.'s over there. I can't help but laugh at the image of somebody getting messenger service spam while playing something. "Want to score? Let us show you how!"
    • People like you are why Windows gets a bad rep. You simple DISABLE the messenger service and you worry nothing of it. I'm sure even you know that, but you are just trying to troll. Windows only seems to cause problems to people that don't know what the hell they are doing anyway, so trying to get those same people to use Linux is kinda stupid.
      • I just said it would be amusing. You mean you wouldn't find the idea of a pop-up spam during the middle of a game the least bit amusing/interesting (not including games you are playing)? Besides, it's entirely possible the custom WinXP they are using doesn't have the messenger service installed/enabled. And if the games aren't networked, there isn't much concern about hacking the box. At that point, it's all about physical access (as opposed to network access), and arcade machines are rarely left unprot
  • "And now you can drive your avatar by typing XML!"

  • Finally (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:33AM (#9957437)
    Something I can comment on, if only I could remember my pass so I didn't have to AC it.

    I work with a lot of SWP type machines (Skill With Prizes aka Quiz machines) and the overwhemly large majority run some form of Windows, either NT, XP or embedded. I can tell you this, Before PC's turned up in arcade machines, they were great fun to work on. Normally they are quite simple electronics for a reason, simple doesn't normally break as often. I'm not even going to start on the amount of BSOD I used to see on a daily basis because my company thought it was a good idea to use Dial-Up to push down updates like videos/new games.
    At least one company I know use Linux in their terminals already, some German/Austrian firm who make the MegaTouch series. I remember being very impressed seeing Linux booting for the first time in a Arcade cabinet!

    • ironically (Score:3, Interesting)

      by numbski ( 515011 ) *
      That's precisely what many of us MAMEer's do.

      I mean, I have an arcade cab that I've salvaged, and most cab owners will install Windows because, aside from MAME, most of the better emulators run on Windows only.

      Nebula and Kawaks are two for starters that drive me nuts. They add some absolutely AWESOME enhancements to CPS2 and Neo Geo titles, such as transparency, and 4-8 player games in Capcom's vs. Series and KOF, over the internet no less!

      I'm trying to get some of my favs working in Wine, and I'm getti

  • Or (Score:3, Informative)

    by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Friday August 13, 2004 @07:41AM (#9957489) Homepage
    Get youself a copy of XMame [mame.net]

    Rus

    • Re:Or (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I prefer Advance MAME [sourceforge.net] for Linux because it has hella more features. It's what I use in my Linux based arcade machine.
  • Frozen Bubble - now there's a Linux game just crying out to be a coin-op. Time to bid farewall to that pocketful of loose change methinks....
  • Alright, since someone is making arcade games on a special edition of WinXP lemme try one or two that come to mind.

    BSO-MDK ?

    No... that sucked. Blue Screen of Fatality! Eh... not funny. Okay I can't think of anything good... ned coffee...

    Next!

    • The preview button has two functions. One of them is so that you can check your post for HTML and other errors. The other one is so that you can read your jokes and find out if they're funny, or if you were just jacking off...

  • While some people have made good points that the games this directly involves may not be released on Linux, it will still end up jump starting the Linux game industry.

    Companies working on the games will begin realizing what a viable platform Linux is for gaming, and begin developing titles for Linux PCs. (Note that "the AP-3 will incorporate hardware based on PC components.")

  • Linux Arcade Systems Already Here (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Perl-Pusher ( 555592 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @08:36AM (#9957913)
    I was playing guitar in a bar one night and the power died. The bar had about 10 of these arcade games with touch screens that had about 20-25 games each with great graphics. I've watched people dump alot of money into these games all night. When the power came back on I was pleasantly suprised to see everyone of those machines going through an init with a bright green OK after each step. After closer examiniation each system was running RedHat 7.3. I've played these games several times and never realised they were running linux. These games were really quite good.
  • Great. I can finally play a decent version of Hextris in my living room.
  • It would be great if new Japanese sit-at-style cabinets will be born of this effort (a starter jamma cabinet google search [google.com]). If MAME [mame.net] could run on this cabinet, you could get the both the *newest* arcade-quality games and your old favorites from MAME.

    Very interesting.
  • If it doesn't play Kolf, it isn't shit...
  • Course, this is old now, and I'm sure it's been discontinued, and it was for bars, etc, but here it is:

    http://www.happcontrols.com/midway/Touchmaster/Inf _Countertop/60068_3_cover_pdf.pdf

  • Tux Racer is in arcades... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dr. Blue ( 63477 ) on Friday August 13, 2004 @11:24AM (#9959849)
    There's an arcade version of Tux Racer -- there's one in our local Chuckie Cheese. Surely they wouldn't commit the sin of putting Tux Racer on a Windows-based arcade platform, would they? Makes me think the claim of these people to be "the first" may not be 100% accurate.

  • For those that weren't aware, "Aruze" translates to "Phantom".
  • about a month ago I went to the arcades near my house, and was surprised to see a TuxRacer machine. I don't know if it runs linux, I wonder how many linux arcade machines are already there, just we don't notice

  • Aruze is evil (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mr_angry ( 668532 )
    Aruze nearly killed SNK. They didn't respect the license contracts. Think they also got sued by the Japanese government for tax fraud. I know they got sued by SNK/Playmore.

    And some rumors of ties with the Yakuza have been around for a while...

    I'm wondering if they'll do things correctly with this Linux project and i can't say i'm too excited by Taito's WinXP platform.
  • Remember "San Francisco Rush: 2049 Edition"? I think the official release was built on Windows, but they later ported it to Linux. Its never-released sequel "Hot Rod Rebels" was Linux only.

    At CA Extreme [caextreme.org] over last weekend I also saw a game called "Crossfire Extreme Paintball" that had crashed to a Linux prompt.

    It makes a lot of sense to run Linux on arcade machines. You won't have to extend it much (if at all) to get at all the machine's hardware, and it'll save you some cash per-unit.

    larry

  • Am I the only one who judges a game on how fun it is and not what OS or platform is uses? I'd take a fun game over a game that runs on Linux anyday.

    P.S. If you think you can't make Windows secure you guys really need to read the NSA white papers on securing Windows.

    • Yeah, I'd take a fun game first. I don't care what platform it is. But as far as the NSA white papers on securing Windows... do you mean disconnecting it from the network?

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