I can’t believe no one has said Hyper Bishi Bashi Champ. You can have three people on a machine at a time, it’s easy to learn for casuals and one of the few games girls are always willing to have a shot at.
How popular is it in the US?
Them 10p machines are huge money makers. Everyone, including myself always seems to get addicted to them.
I would probably have an Outrun machine because everyone likes outrun and it would make alot of money just because it’s fun and you don’t need to learn tons of frame data to get good at it :lol:
Fighting games… I would obviously have all the newest ones, Street Fighter 4, Tekken 6 BR, Blazblue etc
But I’d like some of the classics aswell like SF2 Hyper Fighting and Super Turbo, UMK3, Killer Instinct, Primal Rage, King of fighters (I never got into KOF so I don’t really know the best version), All the Marvel vs Capcom games.
I’d throw in a few light gun games, like Time Crisis and House of the Dead.
Couple Pool tables, Air Hockey Tables etc.
Them other games where like you roll the ball up a slope and have to land it in a hole and you get tickets to buy prizes from the counter with. These ones. They’re big money makers.
This is assuming I would have infinite money 
If I had to pick between racing games I would choose Fzero AX. The fast paced racing get your adrenalin pumping.
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The machine itself would attract people.
Same here but then I’d add in Arcana Heart 2, MBAA, BBCS,GG,Wartech Senko no Ronde (duo if it’s out) and Boarder Break
At that point it wouldn’t matter if those machines didn’t make any profit since the others would do fine. (Put it this way, still see “arcades” like that fairly often, just no fighting games:sad:)
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Alpha 3 Upper (with the proper dipswitch settings)
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VF5R
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SFIII: Giant Attack/Second Impact (loud volume cuz I like the music)
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Demolished Fist (3D arcade beatemups are always fun)
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Simpsons Arcade
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TMNT: Turtles in Time
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Marvel Super Heroes
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Super Street Fighter IV (Lord willing it makes it to an arcade)
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Tekken Tag
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Pac-man jr.
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Jurassic Park (granted I can find a fully functional cockpit)
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any multiplayer racer (maybe Cruise 'n World or something)
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Time Crisis
A lot of people are picking their “favorites” that they would like to see, but that does not necessarily mean it is going to make money.
The #1 priority is knowing your demographics. If you have a casual crowd, what age group is it? What nationality/race are the people that frequent your arcade? What games did/do they like to play?
I run 120 games at one of my arcades, and the key is to have something for EVERYONE.
A few things that baffle me. If you had a CHOICE, why would anyone pick 2nd Impact over 3rd Strike? It’s not played much and it’s going backwards. Same with Zero 3 Upper. The arcade version of Alpha 3 is still what is KNOWN in the United States during that time period. Same is said for Jr. Pac-Man. Ms. Pac-Man is INFINITELY more popular and everyone expects to play that. I am not saying to not include these types of games, but you have to understand if you have a limited amount of space you need to realize what the capabilities are that you are working with.
With the three arcades I have right now (one is only revenue share with 20 games, the others have 120 and 55 games respectively) they are HEAVILY influenced by clientele and earning potential experience.
At the arcade I am at most, I ALWAYS have something for everyone. You need something for the following:
families/couples: Air Hockey Table, racers, pinball
casuals: Crane Game, gun shooters, racers
older couples, those over 40: pinballs, classic games
women: Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga
hardcore dancing gamers: In The Groove 2, DDR Extreme depending on competition nearby from other locations.
fighting game players: console sections/arcade hybrids for the newest fighting games UNLESS you have a considerable amount of time (Tekken 6) where the game will be in arcades and can make the money back.
console section: pay by the hour or all day on the “latest” games: MW2, etc, or have a classic section.
To add to additional income I also buy/sell console video game systems because it’s way easier to sell a game for $10 as opposed to having $10 of quarters spent in your place.
Now as for “shooting” proper games (non gun) if you have a college nearby and hardcore shooting fanatics, then the latest Cave games would be necessary, but my crowd for those is minimal, so I keep a horizontal and a vertical shooter for players…
I also have a “monthly” beat em up or vertical/horizontal shooting game with a schedule of what is to be placed in the cabinet and when it is rotated. Much easier with candy cabinets…
With a larger hispanic population, Neo Geo stuff works well (KOF games, soccer games) and stuff like Snow Bros/Buster Bros…
I have a list of games we have in the arcade that is probably one of the best combined efforts of game choices anyone has made for one place with ample room, we really left out nothing in there except maybe a Dragon’s Lair…
Pool tables and lattes, I guess. Also a few PC’s.
i believe you. i recall the arguments and occasional fight. the inexplicable cabinet rage, not to mention the sheer number of guys who couldn’t take the 2 second needed to flush the crapper. invariably, when the owner gave a clear signal that he was closing up shop in 5 minutes. there was always that one group of guys arguing for their quarters/tokens back once the games were shut off.
i concur. it wasn’t popular at the arcades i played either. it only became a “Jinfest” to those who stuck around long enough to notice it. a lot of players (including myself) rage quit T4 not long after it dropped. the last time i was that pissed at a game was SFA2.
If you had an arcade with all the classic fighting games: Marvel Vs Capcom 2, 3S, ST, and CVS2, and I’ll say A3, basically all the old games, and you couldn’t afford arcade SF4 because it’s an outrageously expensive machine:
Would you put a console version of SF4 in the arcade?
I’m a purist and I want only coin operated machines in the arcade and to me putting console in an arcade is kinda weak. Since, however, SF4 is ridiculously expensive and this is the only way to have SF4 in an arcade environment, should console SF4 be there in the arcade?
How would you charge for it? Sign in sheet? Would arcade players embrace it? It’s a different way of payment. It’s not coin operated. And since it’s sign in sheet it would be hard for players to get in a competitive rotation.
denjin arcades lineup is the best imo, maybe throw in t6br and the upcoming new revisions of blazeblue and vf5 .
If I started an arcade, I would have a WORKING PINBALL MACHINE… Seriously, here on the east coast, it’s like no one has one. And the arcades refuse to have them fixed…
SF4
MvC 2
air hockey table.
Guitar Hero Arcade
Mario Kart Arcade
Cool Riders (a classic sega racing title everyone must play)
an imported House of the Dead dating game
Pac Man
Gradius
A Sega UFO Catcher
Mortal Kombat 2
And one Tekken and/or soul Caliber Game (preferably an older one)
No Virtua On love? What’s goin on?
Planet Zero has operated an F-Zero AX since 2005 and it has been very good title for them.
SF4 WAS ridiculously expensive. Now, you can get a kit for around $5,000 (which is in the $3,000 to $6,000 range of new game prices today) which, while still very expensive is not unreasonable.
Personally, I do not feel that console SF4 has a place in the arcade. Like you, I’m a purist, and if there wasn’t a way to do arcade-style pay-for-play, I wouldn’t operate it. However, if you choose to go that route, there are Timer Boards you can purchase from China which allow you to hook up an X-Box 360 to the arcade machine with a digital timer (pay for time on machine). Sign-in sheets are tedious, renting time would be ambiguous, and more importantly, you’re not going to pay the bills you need to with that structure. Use a Timer Board, at least.
There are also supposedly many Chinese arcades that use hacks specifically for console SF4 which emulate the arcade version (so that the winner stays in arcade mode, and the loser is knocked off). I think we will see something like this gain popularity in the bulk of Asia (not counting Japan) if Capcom does not pull through with a licensed arcade version for SSF4.
OK. Imagine you have a brand new $4500 pinball machine. It’s a fairly popular game, so it makes about $60 a week. At this rate, it will take about 1.4 years before you pay that machine off and begin to see a return on investment (ROI).
Now, 12 weeks into your $4500 investment, an obscure part on your pinball machine breaks. It requires a special $100 part to fix, and you’ve never repaired pinball machines before, so you need to hire a pinball technician. There is only one in your entire state that knows how to service your machine, so he charges $200/hour. So, $500 later, you’ve fixed your pinball machine back to 100% . . . and added 8 more weeks needed to pay off your investment.
This is why there isn’t any place that operates pinballs, and the places that do have no incentive to repair them. They’re perpetual money sinks, and unless you yourself are a pinball technician with years of experience and knowledge on repairing obscure equipment, it is impossible to make ROI. The places that DO operate pinball machines (like dive bars, restaurants) are not actually being operated by the owner of that business–they’re done by someone doing a “route”, basically a person that operates several coin-operated machines throughout the area and collects a percentage from each machine. Usually, these are older men who still have a strong personal interest in pinball (and sometimes, but not always, know how to repair them).
Everyone has good memories of this game, except for the operators–it’s not an easy cabinet to repair. The joysticks, cool as they were, require obscure knowledge to repair and replacements are impossible to source. It was a very popular title at one of our old arcades, even though the joysticks were half-broken.
The Gundam VS series is the spiritual successor to Virtual On, and can be played with a regular joystick and buttons. For fans of the classic, there IS a very rare Virtual On control panel which can fit Sega cabinets which allows the game to be played without the full, dedicated setup–“Hey!” Game Center in Akihabara has a setup like this for Virtual On on their famous SHMUP floor.
Is this the price today for 1 unit or 2? So is it gonna be more like $10,000 to play 2 players?
Is it also better to play SF4 on a regular CRT monitor and not HD because there’s no lag. Ya I know the color is not as crisp on CRT but the gameplay is better.
OMFG I gotta know more about this. With console SF4 I know you can rig the start button to take coins but if you do that you wouldn’t be able to skip intros. But you need to disable the home button and somehow leave it on arcade mode. That’s easy if you make a cabinet. The drawback is that there would be a lot of waiting for the intros and some guy has to monitor the game so that people won’t put it on versus mode. But if you can do that and leave it in arcade mode then you would have something decent.
Do you have any idea how it plays? The emulated SF4? Is it laggy or smooth?
- Derby Owners Club 2008
- H2o Overdrive
- 4 capcom impress w/ third strike
- A dedicated Killer Instinct 1 & 2 machine
- 2 Astrocity’s w/ marvel 2
- 3 side by side Maximum tune 3 machines
- An american style neo geo cabinet (4 slot)
- …
$5000-$6000 is the price now for 2 units, in other words, everything you would need for a head-to-head setup (minus the cabinets).
You are severely misinformed; HD monitors do not all lag (see Tech Talk thread). The Vewlix F, Delta 32, and Noir HD cabinets have no lag whatsoever, their performance is equal to CRT cabinets. The Vewlix L (blue version), however, does have a small perceivable lag.
Disabling the home button isn’t hard (just don’t have a button for it). I don’t know exactly how Chinese arcades do their hacks (apparently, some arcades do their own custom hack, etc.) but the coin basically lets you hit the start button once.
SF4 is not emulated; it’s playing on an X-Box 360 like normal. Again, if you do this on a lag-free HD arcade cabinet (which is all of them, except for the Vewlix F) it will play normally.
Sounds like your getting Death Smiles 2 brand new for us… right, right?! :looney:
Funny Because my brother and I were just thinking about this and the next big step for American’s playing fighting games. We have come up with something but it is a work in progress so I will put what I have as of now.
We would open not just one arcade but more like 5 or six, put them up all across the country. Places like NY, So Cal (Irvine/Laguna Hills is my home town so I would put one there so I can live close to one of my “Hubs”) Nor Cal, Houston, Naperville. We have other place in mind but this our top five. Rather than having regular arcade cabinets we will have cabinets with home systems in them. About 20-22 cabinets with 8 going to Xbox 360, 8 going to PS3, and the rest going to Wii. We will have it setup where you can have a single fight setup or a 2 player setup, (Just popins like the x-arcade) We will also have flight stick for xbox360 and Ps3 for Fsp’s and RTS games. (think more about that 4 player war game, the one with a battle arena or a story mode that you could play with friends, it was an arcade game with 4 buttons off to the side for “wasd” a flight stick and a jump button. I think it was called war actually.) The games would be swapped out as requested, but default for the Wii systems would be the top selling fighter on that console, the xbox 360 would be 3 SF4/SSF4 3 would be Tekken 6 and the last two would be random fighters, same for ps3. The 4 random game cabinets would always be setup for 2 players but all other systems would be default for only one stick.
The big part about this is the T3 connection I will be running at these Hubs, and that all cabs will be hooked up to the internet for online fighting/Fps/Rts games. WIRED CONNECTION.
As the fighting games got around to using better code and online was better from the actual games, these place would fill up like crazy. Being able to put money on the line against people you have setup to play on sites like this would be out of control. There will be no more online=fail because my hubs will be the biggest pushing force in online console gaming.
Think about it. If you knew that the person you were trying to play had a shit crap connection that they borrowed from their neighbor would you play them… Hell no, but we do not know that, we know what bullshit the say they have. How much better would online be if we all used the same style of connection, (speed and wired) I am not saying that the games now would run great but they would run much more smooth.
It is a work but I know now that I never will be able to make it come true so i put the idea out to the community to mess with, see if they can make something of it and if they can not by the time my children are ready to let me do something like that, I will take the gaming world by storm!!!
For SF4 since the start button is being used as a coin slot and since that means you can’t use the start button as a regular button because it’s used as a coin slot, that means you can’t use the start buttons to skip intros before battles right?
Does that make sense haha?
I need to get this arcade mode only console version of SF4 and later SSF4.
There is no reason to even consider this unless Capcom screws the industry over by never releasing an arcade version of SSF4. If there’s a licensed arcade version, buy the real product. Don’t be a dirty fucking pirate that rips the system to make a quick buck.
SF4 in its current $4,000 price range (according to new offers I’ve been receiving) is very affordable compared to other new games on the market. When you run an arcade, you are not just buying the software, you are purchasing a license for each title to make money from someone else’s intellectual property.