3 ms·

Same, but by that time malls - and therefore arcades - began to decline rapidly in popularity. Great games with nobody to play them. That plus consoles and PCs

Same, but by that time malls - and therefore arcades - began to decline rapidly in popularity. Great games with nobody to play them. That plus consoles and PCs began to have the same graphics capabilities as arcade games at a reasonable price. No sense in pumping endless quarters into a machine you have to beg your parents to take you to when they can just as easily buy the console version to play at home.

deadmetheny 9y ago
At least around here, arcades still had a strong social aspect. You could certainly play excellent games at home with similar graphics to an arcade, but you were limited to playing against your friends, where at the arcade you had all sorts of new potential challengers. I personally made a lot of new friends in the mid 90s fighting game arcade scene. Rhythm games like DDR, Para Para, or Bemani are something else entirely. There's still no great way to play those at home without a bunch of special hardware.
- rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
  Sigh...your comment reminded me of the broken hearts my girlfriend and I endured when she bought me a brand new Xbox One for us to play Halo 5 together, only to discover that split screen multiplayer has been effectively smothered to death by the games industry (sans Nintendo). Although I'm not sure I agree 100% with your last comment. Many of my friends bought DDR home versions and Guitar Hero/Rock Band accessories aplenty when they were popular. A lot of folks were certainly willing to shell out for the extra hardware.
  - deadmetheny 9y ago
    Oh absolutely, I was certainly willing to shell out the money for a Cobalt Flux dance pad as well, but without the arcade version of DDR selling me on the game I wouldn't have been willing to do so. The soft pads aren't even close to the same experience, honestly.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      I was sad to learn those guys went out of business. But DDR also got me into hardware modification hobbyism, which was cool.
  - justinhj 9y ago
    I feel your pain. Call of Duty still implements split screen though
  - ashark 9y ago
    You can play Perfect Dark with improved graphics and modern controls on a 360 or XBone. It's still one of the best console FPS games around, and includes some really cool and unusual multiplayer modes (campaign co-op and campaign versus!) and bots (to fill out those 2-player matches).
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Fighting games remain something with offline multiplayer games and in many cities there's a scene with people regularly getting together to play... so that's pretty cool.

deadmetheny 9y ago

At least around here, arcades still had a strong social aspect. You could certainly play excellent games at home with similar graphics to an arcade, but you were limited to playing against your friends, where at the arcade you had all sorts of new potential challengers. I personally made a lot of new friends in the mid 90s fighting game arcade scene. Rhythm games like DDR, Para Para, or Bemani are something else entirely. There's still no great way to play those at home without a bunch of special hardware.

rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
Sigh...your comment reminded me of the broken hearts my girlfriend and I endured when she bought me a brand new Xbox One for us to play Halo 5 together, only to discover that split screen multiplayer has been effectively smothered to death by the games industry (sans Nintendo). Although I'm not sure I agree 100% with your last comment. Many of my friends bought DDR home versions and Guitar Hero/Rock Band accessories aplenty when they were popular. A lot of folks were certainly willing to shell out for the extra hardware.
- deadmetheny 9y ago
  Oh absolutely, I was certainly willing to shell out the money for a Cobalt Flux dance pad as well, but without the arcade version of DDR selling me on the game I wouldn't have been willing to do so. The soft pads aren't even close to the same experience, honestly.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I was sad to learn those guys went out of business. But DDR also got me into hardware modification hobbyism, which was cool.
- justinhj 9y ago
  I feel your pain. Call of Duty still implements split screen though
- ashark 9y ago
  You can play Perfect Dark with improved graphics and modern controls on a 360 or XBone. It's still one of the best console FPS games around, and includes some really cool and unusual multiplayer modes (campaign co-op and campaign versus!) and bots (to fill out those 2-player matches).
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Fighting games remain something with offline multiplayer games and in many cities there's a scene with people regularly getting together to play... so that's pretty cool.