Sony In Deal For Networked Arcade Games

Ggggeo writes: "I saw this story at Yahoo! about Sony in a deal with Sega and Namco about networked arcade games. Not just local networked games, but wide area networked games you can play in one arcade against other players in other arcades far, far, away. The article also mentions DoCoMo (in regard to bringing iPhone content to your TV through a PlayStation.) Basically it will be a pumped-up version of the home PlayStation with lots of additions and enhancements (cameras, monitors, and high speed networks among others)."

What's the point?

Arcades in LAN / WAN. What a marvellous idea.. Except not..

Most people owning a computer nowadays have more processing power than the common arcade machines - the only advantage the Arcade still has is the fancy stuff, like a steering wheel and huge monitors, surround sound etc. The only reason I'd want to pay up 10 Norwegian Kroner (a little more than a dollar) to play in a WAN would be to see the face of the person I have beaten, right after I have beaten him..

It's all psychology. In short: I don't think it's very satisfying to win a game of Ferrari racing, and leave the Arcade machine thinking "Oh boy, did I cream that BllDg guy somewhere in Kansas City".

Point: It's completely irrelevant that the technology exists.. If I want to play long-distance-network, I might as well use the internet - in which case I can play for a week for the same prize it costs me to play two games in the arcade.

Give me the internet any day.

Re:Is the arcade dead?

Actually, there's a substantial amount of kids nowadays that have never really hung out in a real arcade... many municipal governments in the US have fought long and hard to make arcades... aka juvenile delinquent hangouts, as they saw them... a non-existent part of the landscape. Hence, there is no local arcade anymore, no place to really hang out and play all kinds of games.

Before you argue with me, an arcade is NOT:

1. a movie theater
2. an indoor amusement park that's rather large and is not easily accessible by foot for most people (some lucky kids have these nearby, but it's like the movie theaters now... you gotta drive a distance to get to one)
3. a deli or small shop with less than 3 arcade machines
4. anyplace that charges admission
5. a local-area tourist attraction or highway rest stop

Not to say you can't get your game on in those places, but in general, those are NOT hangouts for the purposes of playing arcade games. Specifically, a lot of those places are faraway for most kids, not easily accessible, expensive, and generally unsuitable for hanging out with the guys (or girls). You could hangout there, for whatever reason, but it's not like an arcade. It's not the same atmosphere.

I really wish that didn't happen, but there were too many pedophiles, drug dealers, thugs packin heat and knives, and all other kinds of seedy elements gathering there after a while to ruin it for everyone. I mean, it's not that it got bad at most arcades... but it was excuse enough for the cops to harrass the places. And since they got to be too much trouble to run, people stopped running them. I can personally think of 4 or 5 arcades in walking distance from my house that went belly-up when I was growing up. Hell, I had an amusement park in my town that got knocked down a few years before I was born (to make condos, no less) for the exact same reasons.

Video game consoles just replaced arcades... it's not that they made them extinct. They were already becoming extinct.

For proof, there's a lot of coin-op companies getting out of the business (or already out). Williams, the grand-pinball company, is one of them. It's sad, really.

Re:Good!

Anything that gets Sega doing its great software, instead of its ridiculous hardware is a good idea. Hopefully they won`t be working with MS, so it`ll be MS vs sony/sega/namco/etc.

Well considering Sega already worked with MS to provide a copy of WinCE for the dreamcast, this hardly seems a solid viewpoint.

As to the Dreamcast being "ridiculous" hardware, what the hell was "ridiculous" about stuffing half of an arcade machine in a $200 games console, so you could port all your top-end arcade games straight to the home for minimal cost? No developer ever stated the Dreamcast was difficult to develop for. The problem was Sega had no idea about marketing it, so no-one got to know how good it was. And we know what happens when the inferior tech gets all the marketing dollars: the inferior tech wins.

If it's "ridiculous" hardware you are after, then take a look at the innards of the Sega Saturn, or more to the point the PS2 with it's crazed innards.

Re:What a great idea.

I'd love to see an environment that actually is a world... a place where people can actually talk with each other by talking, or even smiling, and frowning, and gesturing, instead of typing.

Dude. Step away from your computer. Walk towards an immediate exit. Exit. Look around. Thos funny looking avatars in khakis with ID badges on? No they're not crabheads, put that rocket launcher down. Those are called PEOPLEv.2.1(GPL). You can have all the interaction you just described and more with them!

P.S.-->The sweet-smelling ones are called girls. I'll let you figure that one out.

--Just Another Pimp A$$ Perl Hacker

Is the arcade dead?

Not being a teenager I'm not really sure about the answer to this question, but what does the arcade really have to offer any more?

Home console systems now have pretty much all the power we need to run arcade-quality games, and every year sees a huge leap in performace with the release of new systems. The only thing I can see that traditional arcades offer is games with novelty controllers, like those huge ones that have fake motorcycles. And those cost so much that they're hardly economical...

So where does this leave the traditional arcade? It seems to be to be a doomed business...

DoCoMo, reinventing the PC?

Sorry Sony, but I already have a gaming station with a propietary operating system that is networked, with cameras, removeable storage and a scanner. It's called Windows 98 PC.

What's the value added for my going to Playstation? Are the games that much better to justify buying all new peripherals and learning an all new operating system, with all it's new quirks?

Nope, can't see it, stick with console games for the Joe Sixpacks out there who can barely boot a PC, let alone do something as complex as editing their registry.

Already been done! :)

I no longer work there, but while I was at Midway Games, I briefly worked on a project(called WaveNet) like this.

We took the arcade game Mortal Kombat 3, added a tiny board to an expansion connector with a 386 with a TCP/IP stack and ethernet port to it, and connected it to a Bay router hooked to a 56k leased line... We had a small NOC at Midway where all the 56k lines terminated, and some servers that acted as the hosts for the games.

At its peak, we had about 15 games in the Chicago area hooked up. It worked pretty well, we had to make a few modifications to the game... Mortal Kombat is a very very very twitch-reaction speed game. The delays introduced from networking it were, while unavoidable, kinda high. But, most people couldn't tell the difference after we were done.

(My only involvment with this was gameplay related changes to MK3 after the project was nearly completed)

After Mortal Kombat 3, the same thing was done with San Francisco Rush in a bunch of arcades in the California area. Same idea, but with a driving game, delays aren't nearly as noticable.

(I had no involvement in this project)

Now the project is called MTN. (Midway Tournament Network). They're taking several Midway games and networking them across the world... (You may be able to find details about it on Midway's website)

I'm not trying to downplay what these guys are doing, but i don't think many people here recognize that this is already in place, to some extent.

Re:Is the arcade dead?

what does the arcade really have to offer any more?

You know, people have been saying that as long as I can remember. The analogy that I think fits best is, What do movie theaters have to offer anymore Home theater technology is to the point now where you can get an equivalent (or superior) experience sitting in your living room in your underpants.

Video arcades, just like movie thaters, benefit from the fact that they get first-run games. Before PS2 was even finalized as a system, I was destroying people left and right in Tekken Tag Tournament. As long as powerful video boards are cheaper to mass manufacture for video arcades, arcades will receive the first slew of 'hot new games'.

--Just Another Pimp A$$ Perl Hacker

P.S.-->Oh, the other reasons that traditional arcades will never die out. You can play pool, pinball, and meet girls in them. Girls are good.