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See this is what confuses me, are Arcades not still fairly big in Japan? What do they play there? Old machines?

throwaway_75369 3y ago
Depends on the location, many of the best arcades in Japan are multiple floors, and each floor usually has a theme, so like the ground floor is crane games, and then a floor for shooters/shmups, then a floor or two for fighting games, and then a floor or two for music games. Maybe a floor with card games or those giant horse racing games... I was fortunate enough to go like 5 years ago, but I really fondly remember Taito Hey had a whole row of like 8 Super Sweet Fighter 2 Turbo machines which were basically continuously occupied, and then a floor down I watched somebody basically one credit perfect one of those Capcom Dungeons and Dragons side scrolling brawlers, and then on another floor was a widescreen Darius machine (which I'd never seen in the US). In other locations there were floors of like card-based army formation strategy games, music games with circular screens, etc. Pachinko is like its own thing, almost always in different buildings, usually like 3 times as loud as the arcades, and full of smoking. Strangely I don't recall seeing any western style pinball machines anywhere, though. Basically, it was arcade nirvana for someone like me (born in the early 80's) I heard things got pretty bad during Covid, though, so I don't know how much it's regressed. I do have a friend who just got back from visiting the first time though, and he mentioned he could still find tons of competition in old fighting games and stuff. (Man I wanna go back, especially since the exchange rate is so good now) Edit: typos
ranger_danger 3y ago
Arcades are unfortunately slowly dying in Japan, but it's still a much bigger business there than in the states. Most new arcade machines since the late 2000s are off-the-shelf PCs with (already for its time) outdated graphics cards.
jdkee 3y ago
From last year, see https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/news/another-iconic-gaming-arcade-in-akihabara-is-closing-this-september-081522 https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/news/another-iconic-gaming-arc...

Depends on the location, many of the best arcades in Japan are multiple floors, and each floor usually has a theme, so like the ground floor is crane games, and then a floor for shooters/shmups, then a floor or two for fighting games, and then a floor or two for music games. Maybe a floor with card games or those giant horse racing games... I was fortunate enough to go like 5 years ago, but I really fondly remember Taito Hey had a whole row of like 8 Super Sweet Fighter 2 Turbo machines which were basically continuously occupied, and then a floor down I watched somebody basically one credit perfect one of those Capcom Dungeons and Dragons side scrolling brawlers, and then on another floor was a widescreen Darius machine (which I'd never seen in the US). In other locations there were floors of like card-based army formation strategy games, music games with circular screens, etc. Pachinko is like its own thing, almost always in different buildings, usually like 3 times as loud as the arcades, and full of smoking. Strangely I don't recall seeing any western style pinball machines anywhere, though. Basically, it was arcade nirvana for someone like me (born in the early 80's) I heard things got pretty bad during Covid, though, so I don't know how much it's regressed. I do have a friend who just got back from visiting the first time though, and he mentioned he could still find tons of competition in old fighting games and stuff. (Man I wanna go back, especially since the exchange rate is so good now) Edit: typos

ranger_danger 3y ago

Arcades are unfortunately slowly dying in Japan, but it's still a much bigger business there than in the states. Most new arcade machines since the late 2000s are off-the-shelf PCs with (already for its time) outdated graphics cards.

jdkee 3y ago

From last year, see https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/news/another-iconic-gaming-arcade-in-akihabara-is-closing-this-september-081522 https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/news/another-iconic-gaming-arc...