I honestly dont know what happened.. The last time I saw an American arcade at capacity was back when Mortak Kombat 1 came out. I remember this one specific arcade in the mall I lived next to in Texas had many games with people crowded around each one... Knights of the Round, Hard Drivin (full cab), After Burner II (full cab) Aliens, APB, Street Fighter II, etc.. This place was ALWAYS packed... Not long after, it simply died.
I live in Tokyo now, and I dont think the arcades here are as great as everyone thinks they are.. Honestly 90% of the people in most arcades I go to are there to play pachinko. The games are greatly neglected, with the monitors showing horrible blurring and color bleed.. And I almost never see any games that wont fit into one of those Neo Candy cabinets... ex. Silent Scope, driving games, crazy taxi or pinball... Most arcades here are all exactly the same with multiple fighting games, card games, pachinko, the new Gundam fighting games I see the Initial D games everywhere but honestly theres nothing here that great... I do like the new Aliens game though.. based on the colonial marines.. but its not worth paying almost $2 to play... I think the arcades in Japan are dying as well, and without pachinko to sustain them, they would have been dead 10 years ago like in America.. PAchinko is keeping Japanese game centers alive.
anyhow, thats my opinion..
Bookmarks