Let’s jump into this mid-July weekend with some news shall we?
Super Arcade Petition – Just a reminder that there is still time to sign the petition to the City of Azusa, CA regarding the Super Arcade situation there. Doc Mack of Galloping Ghost Arcade is flying down there to add his voice to the chorus of supporters. If they’d take a Skype call I would gladly chime in as I could not appear in person but either way, you can sign the petition and add your voice to those that support the arcade. It’s free and easy to do; let’s hope that the council rules in Super Arcade’s favor this time.
Steve Wiebe Making A New WR Attempt At Donkey Kong – At the Mall of America to boot, no pressure (More info, click here) :
A partial audience view of Steve Wiebe’s Donkey Kong record attempt… pic.twitter.com/3cgHTk0Yqi
— Twin Galaxies (@TwinGalaxies) July 11, 2015
Thats a big screen @mallofamerica pic.twitter.com/UKlylTc7VS — Twin Galaxies (@TwinGalaxies) July 11, 2015
Stern Pinball at SDCC – The famous San Diego Comic Con is in full swing and Stern Pinball is there. They posted about one celebrity event they will have today, but expect more to show up just to play pinball:
Come meet Kirk Hammett today at our booth 501 at San Diego Comic Con! Signing session at 1:30pmPT. Metallica… http://t.co/J1NvHp2zVQ
— Stern Pinball (@sternpinballinc) July 11, 2015
ColorDMD Releases South Park – ColorDMD keeps ’em coming, they have just released the firmware to support their color displays on South Park Pinball. I imagine we’ll know what they are up to next soon enough! Capcom’s Cytus Arcade Levels Up With 3D Sound – We’ve mentioned Capcom’s upcoming mobile-to-arcade game a few times on the blog but with the most recent location test in Japan this week, they really suprised everyone with a completely new cabinet that looks a little…odd. That is because they have developed a unique “stereophonic (3D) sound” enclosure. Given Capcom’s developments in the past with hardware like Q-Sound, it is cool to see them trying out some innovative ideas in the arcade once again. This also helps the mobile game stand out much more than it would otherwise. This article at Inside-Games Japan has more details
CytusΩ筐体！！！！！！！！！？？？？？？？ pic.twitter.com/jVznIuwiEy — Saiko.R.F (@Saiko_R_F) July 11, 2015
Insert Coins Las Vegas Closes – Now for some negative news, thanks to Michael Louie for the tip. Back in 2011 we reported about a hot new bar/arcade that opened in Las Vegas by the name of Insert Coin(s). They started off really strong with large crowds but something has gone amiss in that time and according to this story at Vegas Eater, they have been evicted from their premises on Fremont St. I did try to call to see if I could catch someone there and get more information but no luck at this time. As far as I am aware, the location in Minneapolis is still in operation – I do wonder if the attempt to handle two locations in far away states could have had a detrimental effect in this situation.
I don’t want to place the blame on their failure for just sticking with retro games for 99% of the arcade titles as it could have been any other number of factors that had nothing to do with the games(they also had console games to play). Admittedly I have never ran a bar before so I am not familiar with the nuances that might make or break that side of the business. Sometimes you can have the best food/drinks/games and still fail because of bad management, bad employees or smarter local competition (just watch any number of restaurant reality shows like Mystery Diners, Restaurant Impossible, Kitchen Nightmares, etc, etc for one example after the other – a lot of that can apply to any business). But as I mentioned on the most recent AH podcast, when it comes to running a retrocade, I know how that works. Without discussing it with the owner we won’t know why exactly IC failed but an eviction usually means rent wasn’t paid and if rent wasn’t paid, that often means that costs outweighed the profits. In my experience, making a retrocade work has required huge quantities of games (at least 100, if not 200+) tied to a great, low rent or… a variety of new video games or redemption to sustain it. My own place is almost 50/50 on old vs new at this point but as I have said many times, my Super Cars or Jurassic Park or Terminator or Big Buck or Star Wars will make as much money by themselves as all of the classics will combined on any given week. i.e. My Star Wars is making more in a single day than Ms. Pac-Man does in two weeks or what Crystal Castles makes in an entire year (yes, really). The old stuff also will have more technical problems than the newer will, on average and technical problems means money spent. One thing I think that is also overlooked from the bar/arcade business models of the 70s and 80s is that all of those games were new and fresh at the time. Pong was a huge hit at Andy Capps Tavern because it was something no one had seen before and it was fun. Had they thrown a ping pong table in there instead, it wouldn’t even be a footnote in the history of bars.
Either way, I am sad to hear about this happening to IC, hopefully they will be able to thrive in Minneapolis. Source: Vegas Eater
King of Kong Arcade :The Leftover – Nick Lombardo of The Arcade Hunters shows us what has become of the space where the infamous King of Kong Arcade used to be at the Orlando International airport.
German Pinball Open 2015 – Now for something niceer – 11 minutes of footage from the recent German Pinball 2015 event. Looks like it was a good time.
Name That Game #50 – Sorry for skipping last week, I was vacationing and there wasn’t really enough to make a newsbytes post with anyways. Here are your answers for NTG#49:
#2 – Reusing for this week, see below
#3 – Brixian by Cheil Computer System
And for this week:
first one is surf planet!. other two!… im not sure :L
Yeah deffinatly surf planet but the other two I’m not sure either, although the I thought the second game was aero fighter/sonic wings games in the series.
That big donkey kong on the screen reminds me of an article I read years ago in Nintendo magazine where some university students made a giant Tetris game on a sky scraper glass building where each window was a block.
Battle Bakraid
Battle Bakraid has such an awesome OST