Being up front and watching the all thing was beyond amazing, one of the best experiences of my life, the hype, the energy, the suspence. The only bad thing now is that will be one year untill next evo and who knows if daigo will go to this one. Otherwise wong pretty much got next year’s evo in the bag.
^I think, as long as we keep giving him hefty sums of money to kick our asses, he’ll keep showing up.
The only reason why he wouldn’t would be wife + kid pushblock, but considering the money he brings home I doubt Mrs. Daigo cares. You all probably helped chip in for her new Louis Vitton bag.
It’s not THE reason, but it’s a difference maker. The biggest reason, IMO, is that arcades are plentiful and prosperous in Japan. In 99% of america, there are few arcades, and the ones that are around are dominated by redemption machines and such. Arcade games aren’t inherently better than the home versions anymore–they’re usually inferior, actually. My city isn’t big, but the metro area has between 750,000 and 1 million people. There are two arcades here that I know of, and about 5 fighting games between them, none of them new. It’s like this or worse in a lot of the US.
I’ve got to chime in here. This is highly circular logic. Alive = successful = prosperous = plentiful = popular. When talking about arcades these terms are all synonymous. You’ve basically just said that they’re poplular over there because they’re popular.
He’s right. The biggest reason is because of the size of the country. If you go back to the time when arcades were thriving and smash the U.S. population down to match the per capita of Japan then I think they’re still kicking. The other reason is because at the time there was more of a negative stigma on gaming than there is now, but the biggest reason is in fact the proximity of people to the product.
No, I’m not…at all. Do you understand the distinction between the arcade and the arcade scene as being discussed here? Is that not clear to you in context?
He said the reason the the arcade scene is alive, talking about competitive fighting game playing and the ability of top players to face top level competition at any given time. He wasn’t talking about the arcades themselves just being open. I said I believed the fact that there are way more and better arcades available in Japan is a bigger factor.
Size?yeah and no. I don?t know if you guys watched the BlazBlue team tournament, but HeartNana mentioned that it takes him 2 1/2 hours to get from where he lives to the closest arcade. I live in Kyoto city now, so I?m a 10 minute bike ride from a-cho and some other tiny little arcades where virtual unknowns like RF casually play, but before that I lived outside of the city and it took me an hour at least to get to somewhere with good comp. RF, AFAIK, lives in Nara, so it would take him about an hour at least to go to some of the hot spots in Kyoto or Osaka.
More than the size of the country, its just kind of a better setup. Even though it takes some people forever to get to one, Japan has a great transportation system and everything is usually located relatively close to the train station.
That having been said, I don?t think America?s size really contributed to the fall of arcades there. Helped sure, but I don?t think we can pin the whole blame on that. When console technology caught up and we started getting home ports that were just as good as the arcade (at least on the surface?), I think a lot of casual players were content to just save their quarters and play at home. With the decrease in traffic and revenue, arcade operators became less motivated to keep their arcades running smoothly - they didn?t get in the latest games or updates, and weren?t always quick to fix broken setups. Not being able to play the games started to discourage the people who still wanted to go to the arcades, and they stopped going as much. Which lead to less revenue again, which lead to the owners really not wanting to put in the time/effort/cash to keep things running smoothly. I remember wanting to stop by my university arcade to get in some A3 games, but the buttons on the 2P side NEVER worked and the operators never bothered to fix them. People would stop by wanting to play, but then be put off by the malfunctioning setup. I too stopped going for awhile, and stopped playing fighting games altogether as I got into other games for a stretch.
I think what has kept Japanese arcades alive is that they are kept up very nicely. If a setup is broken, its fixed in 5 minutes or less. And the good arcades usually get the latest/best version of the game in as it is released. I can?t help but wonder if American arcades had gotten the same treatment, if they might have held on for a little while longer.
You’re making me tear up over here. 
I’m going to have to spill some beer in the name of all the dead arcades now.
When I was a kid it was kind of a dream for me to open a large arcade like the ones in japan except in the states, with a kind of bar setup attached like at Gameworks.
I STILL want to do it… but I know I’d just go bankrupt and be in debt.
Still, a man can have his dreams.
I think if in america you could take a 1 or 2 hour train ride to any of the arcades west cost, east coast, or anywhere and find competition/ maintained cabinets people would go. Shit, I know I would. There’s a reason why in America most of high level player base is in densely populated areas.(norcal, socal, NYC, ect…)
I do think that it is a great advantage that Japan has in that all the good players are in a concentrated area. Japan as a nation has a lot of people in a rather small country.
Playing the best on a regular basis does wonders for one’s skill level.
This.
lol fuck you guys
Wong took rog on a new level ?
Guys you REALLY need to see the last TRF tourneys ou youtube.
It’s just a bad match-up for Daigo.
And Daigo didn’t win the last ones.
TKD (fuerte) did.
Belbeljin (Boxer) did.
Mago did.
Marn and Wong lost in the first match.
Wake up guys, it was a great match but OF COURSE he was dominating footsies with the characters with the BEST normals in the games.
Because why didn’t he dominate with Abel then ?
That WAS a great game and he’s definitly good, but please stop saying he got the best rog in the world without knowing the japanese level, that’s just nonsense.
Wow, those matches was intense as hell! One match after another, great play by both players!
Now that would be something.
At least then waking up for work in the morning wouldn’t suck so much. =P
Those matches were incredibly fun to watch. I also totally support J.Wong’s antics on stage. Its hard not to get pumped up when you have literally thousands of people cheering for you in a competition, and he was repping the USA vs Japan, even though you could go on and on about Daigo not repping all of Japan.
also
-The interview gootecks did with Daigo afterwards is very enlightening for those who have not watched it.
-your last performace does not represent you as a player, to all you gootecks and mike ross haters. valle, combofiend, choi, and a lot of other really good SF4 players weren’t in the top 8 either. This was a huge tournament. Think about the World Series of Poker, and how its format and size allows good lower level players to do better than established pros.
I really hate this whole ‘repping country’ garbage … But I guess people need a reason to root for their favored player, and so by default they fall on the country/coast horseshit.
Exactly, people here are really out of the reality and when you tell them, their crushed ego usually responds with the usual “take the japanese dick out of your mouth”.
I have to reiterate, it is pretty stupid to say that Wong’s Boxer outplayed Daigo when a lot of Wong’s comebacks were due to Daigo missing multiple key fierce dps in his combos that you usually never see him mess. So…instead of Daigo doing 10% of that dp in the combo, he ends up taking 50% for missing it. It happened multiple times and it was probably due to the crowd getting to him.
When you punish missed combos like which usually never get missed, it definitely isn’t “outplaying”.
It was amazing when daigo whiffed a throw, then threw out an ume shoryu
Whatever else you might argue about Wong’s Balrog and so on and so forth, those were some fucking awesome matches that I wish I had seen in person. Both Wong and Daigo are amazing players and seeing them throw down once again at EVO kicked all sorts of ass.
If people cared about arcade’s over here there would be more. One of the reasons people are better at fighting games in japan is because of the proximity of the top players, but another reason is because arcades are just more popular in Japan. There’s no arguing that. Americans prefer sitting at home and playing Halo on xbox to going to an arcade to compete at fighting games.