CPU isnt all that relevant tho. The Genesis couldnt handle the huge sprites that the Neo Geo could, and nothing in the average home could match VF2 / 3 when they were released.
during that time the cpu was the gpu also.
Alright, but weren’t a lot of ports of arcade games badly handled?
While both the CPS1 and Sega Genesis had a Motorola 68000 and Zilog Z80, the latter had a higher clockspeed on its 68000. That, plus a few other technnical differences (384KB of RAM + 384KB of VRAM versus 64KB of RAM + 64KB of VRAM) meant that the CPS1 could didplay 4096 colours on screen while the Genesis could only do 64.
Heres the thing, Arcade did,do and for as long as they exist will provide something critical to this scene which you can’t get in the comfort of you own home which was open neutral ground to play other people. Gatherings at people’s houses are good but they are confined by all types of scheduling restraints between people, neighbors, noise levels, people having to go to work or school the next day, etc.
Someone’s house isn’t a public place that people can walk into off the street so it takes things like SRK to grow in peoples houses, but arcades allowed new people to just walk in the door and meet people and make a name for themselves. Also some scrubs can be converted into good players but scrubs rarely travel. And if you’ve ever left something unattended at a tournament for more than 30 seconds you might also know that its not always the best Idea to just have anyone who plays fighting games roaming your house.
Basically home gatherings help make good players better, but they aren’t as good at drawing in new players as a neutral open place to play. The problem with arcades isn’t that they aren’t needed anymore its just that the past/current business model behind them won’t work.
A strip club with cabs and a legal gambling stable. The “New Arcade”. Just an idea…
In 1989 I remember that a lucky teen brother of one of my friends had his dad buy him an expensive Amiga 2000 (probably the best computer at that time for games besides arcade ones), surpassing even consoles, except Neo Geo. also a lot of arcade conversions were very good, except some AtariST ports
The main problem with trying to open an arcade for fighting games is that even if every single fighting game player was regularly heading to arcades, that still wouldn’t amount to much revenue. Arcades were once the place to go to play video games in general, not a single type of game.
There’s probably room for one real arcade that isn’t a Chuck E Cheese type of establishment per large city. Even then, supplemental revenue streams are probably needed and the building probably needs to be owned outright in order to reduce costs. It isn’t something that someone looking to make money would ever take on.
I’d personally wanna avoid such a shady ass area.
GPUs didnt exist back then, but they had other supporting chips that aided graphics performance. I dont know if Neo Geo had one (wikipedia says it had a co-processor?) but certainly the Amiga computer had dedicated chips for graphics and sound.
Anyways, I’m too lazy to research the precise details of the consoles - but even just looking at the games one can tell that CPU speed doesnt tell the whole story.
Yeah, basically the only model I can see working is a business that is profitable and successful doing something else (bar / cafe / restaurant / bowling alley / cinema / whatever) that has arcade games on the side. If the owner is passionate about arcade games then it’s not too unlikely.
Arcades are dead, the business model just can’t work in today’s economy. Unless have other plays like cinemas have arcades at the side.
Arcades don’t work in the business side anymore, and that’s including the theaters, bowling-alleys, etc. Sure, we still see some play it, but not in the long run. And of course, console graphics have improved since the 90s (Despite me growing up a 90s kid loving arcades)
I wonder if arcades can work in a convention.
Arcades can work. Just not 90s arcades. Perhaps not even Japanese Arcades. A couple of things that many arcades lack is incentive. "
“Paying to lose? Why? That could have been a bag of chips I would have actually enjoyed.”
I like Henry’s Lan center like model of Paying to stay to Play. p2s2p. Something like that can work, but it has to do other things as well. One incentive is an arcade ranking system like Japan. This encourages competition, even amongst some casuals. The machines have to look nice and slick. Free2Play machines can also work, but i think it’d just make the cost of staying a whole lot more expensive. Don’t just Cater to us fighting fans either. Have PCs set up for other games. Whatever popular FPS or maybe even slightly obscure games to play (Rumble Fighter). Tournaments with cash prizes for all games would also be nice, as long as entering is cheap. Pizza/burgers/hotdogs/chicken/drinks/Ijustmademyselfhungry bars can also work as long as they are separated from the gaming areas. Hell, make a Halal Food stand. Add in casual games for the masses, put it in a dense area like manhattan with a big building and pretty lights to attract people and BOOM. It still might not be successful, but i’d think that it is safe to say that this model would have more success than the 90s model, depending on how much money you have to throw away. Probably won’t happen, but its still a cool idea to think about.
That’s pretty close to what Gameworks tried, I guess its kind of still going?
Yeah, Gameworks has a deal (at least the one in Seattle), where on Thursday nights, you can pay $10 at the door and then play from 7 to midnight as much as you want. It’s a pretty sweet deal. And they’ve got a bar and kitchen to make money from that as well. That’s the business model I think arcades would have to adopt in order to stay relevant to get over the “paying to lose” mentality.
Now that I think of it there’s a place in PDX that does that too, they serve beer and have ‘pay a cover for freeplay’ nights (Ground Kontrol) complete with DJ’s and such sometimes. Place actually gets some of that oldschool ‘DAMN THIS IS CROWDED’ vibe.
I wonder if there is a way a person can open PC gaming business, and at the same time, an arcade business, but that would take up a huge chunk of space and electricity, not to much mention, a huge license and rent.
Places like this exist already but PC bangs aren’t exactly hot anymore either.
Fishin’ for nostalgia unfortunately…