10 Print “Hello World and welcome to another Newsbytes”
20 Goto 10
Let’s get rolling on other news items from the wonderful world of arcades.
The Replicade Mini Centipede Arcade Machine
(Thanks to everyone who sent this in)
If you have ever wanted to play Atari’s classic arcade shooter Centipede but with only two fingers and on a tiny screen, then New Wave Toys / Replicade Amusements has you covered. Launching a Kickstarter to fund a licensed, 1/6th replica of the famous bug blasting game, they’ve already blown well past the funding goal of $50,000. By their posted timeline, fulfillment is expected by April of next year. I also imagine that they will likely end up creating other games…what else would you like to see made in this size?
This Is Why Not All Games Are Ported Home
Eurogamer.net published this article entitled ‘How I ruined Sega’s financial results’. By that title, you wouldn’t realize the arcade connection here but comes through quickly enough. The home release of Jambo! Safari is a pretty good example of something we’ve covered here before that usually causes some ruffled feathers – that there are sound economic reasons for some games remaining in arcades. Time to don the flame-retardant suit 😛
Arcade games just aren’t designed to offer the same experience at home with unlimited credits. I learned this when I brought my first cabinet home; it wasn’t the same experience when no money was on the line. I played the game differently (more nonchalantly) than I did at the arcade. Thus, it really doesn’t feel the same. That’s something that the writer of the article alludes to but it’s usually a realization that you don’t ‘get’ until you’ve already spent a lot of money. Sure there was a time where console games featured the same complexity of an arcade title but that hasn’t really been the case for a long time. I’ve heard Sega execs also mention that OutRun 2 did poorly when brought to consoles; they can’t keep making such mistakes and stay in business. It works the other way around too. When console titles have been ported, they generally need big changes to be able to attract players and have lasting earnings, otherwise they end up as a flash-in-the-pan flop.
Nintendo Sky Skipper UK Unveil
Earlier this year, news came around that an unreleased Nintendo Sky Skipper had been discovered and restored to working order. The plan was originally to do the “unveil” in both the USA and the UK but some issues arose that kept the UK unveil from happening…until now. The Arcade Blogger has a write-up on what transpired to bring the unveil both to the USA and the UK. It’s a great read!
Jersey Man’s Arcade Gameroom Attracts UK Media Attention
(Thanks to Kieran for sending this in)
Over on the island of Jersey off the coast of France, a father & son have converted their garden room into an arcade/pinball game room. With that being a little unusual on the island, it has attracted the attention of some UK media outlets, including ITV News & the BBC. It mainly features pinball with a few video arcade machines to find. I’ll attempt to embed the ITV Facebook video here but if that doesn’t work, here’s the link
[fb_pe url=”https://www.facebook.com/itvchanneltv/videos/1584292551610050/” bottom=”30″]
Magix Floor Doing Really Well At Chuck E Cheeses
Magix Floor is a product we’ve mentioned before but for whatever reason, I missed their booth at the last two trade shows I attended. As reported by this tweet, the arcade-style version of the game is performing quite well at a CEC in Texas despite not carrying a license or well-known brand name. This will also be at IAAPA 2017:
Last week MagixFloor Ranked 6th out of 101 games at one of the locations of world’s largest #FEC Chain In #Texas! @replaymag @arcadeheroes pic.twitter.com/Zo4pC6ahsA
— touchmagix (@TouchMagix) October 10, 2017
Mortal Kombat Turned 25
We haven’t had a newsbytes all month so this ends up in the better-late-than-never category. Happy 25th MK, it’s too bad you probably won’t grace the arcade scene again but we could always hope.
https://twitter.com/NetherRealm/status/917122833460940806
Arcades Direct! Direct Footage Of Star Wars Battle Pod & In Case Of Zombies
I recently got my hands on a capture card, one made for grabbing video from modern consoles. Since arcade machines use modern PCs along with some proprietary I/O boards and I have access to several of these new games, I figure why not start capturing footage from them direct? I’m never really enjoyed having to do the off-screen camera thing but that is better than nothing. I have been experiencing some trouble in capturing The Walking Dead and Batman as those internally use DVI instead of HDMI; I just need to get an extra converter cable to make it work but I should have that along soon enough. Until then, I’ve captured a couple of HDMI native games, which you can enjoy below. If I’m really lucky, I’ll try and do this with a game or two at IAAPA but no promises there…
That’s all we’ve got for now, have a great weekend, and stay tuned to the site for more game news as IAAPA 2017 approaches fast!
I agree that not all arcade games perform very well at home.
“Jambo! Safari” is a good example: It got special controllers, and it got the “be outside and do something crazy” mood. Plus: Jungle and wilderness is a perfect opposite to an urban place. That doesn’t work at home.
On the other hand, something like a maze game (“Gauntlet” etc.) works better at home.
Wait, can’t capture cards also capture direct audio? Am a little surprised that this is just visual footage. Would be interesting to hear how the game handles stereo sound and such, although maybe that’ll be mroe expensive due to you having to perhaps buy more cables and such, so it’s understandable as well.
The issue with the audio is that arcade games are outputting it through different cables while the capture device I have is HDMI only. Even on Star Wars and Big Buck which use HDMI, they are not outputting any sound through that source; the other games are DVI. Hopefully one day I can get the equipment to make it work.