Return of the Arcades!?

THIS ARTICLE

by CHE
approx. 7 minute read

Once upon a time there were Arcade machines, and it was good. As a kid I would run downstairs to the pizza shop to tippy-toe over a Super Mario Bros. arcade machine. I had no quarters in my pockets, but the pizza shop owner always made sure I did. There was a centipede game and some other shooter as well. It was my first exposure to arcades and it left a lasting impression.

As I got older, arcade machines seemed to popup in every corner of the earth, inside laundromats, deli, and movie theaters. There were even dedicated arcade places. Here players would huddle around Street Fighter II, Golden Axe, and X-Men Arcade games to name a few. It is during these times that arcade set the gold standard of what a video game should be. And essentially, that is what a home gaming console sought out to do; to bring the arcade experience home.

The challenge for gaming consoles was packing the processing power of a dedicated arcade machine into a compact entertainment home system. But the hardware was simply not there. One of the most popular arcade game developers of the time was NEO GEO. They had developed some of the most memorable arcade games, such as Fatal Fury, Samurai Showdown, King of Fighters, and Metal Slug to name a few. Several ports to home gaming consoles were attempted, but they simply could not match the arcade versions. NEO GEO in response decided to bring the arcade home, and developed the NEO GEO home system.

The NEO GEO console brought home, for the first time, the power of the arcade machines. It literally had the same arcade hardware with the exception that the home console could only hold one single cartridge at a time, where as the arcade machine had multiple slots, allowing gamers to select from a list of games in a single machine. The cartridge themselves were massive, almost the size of a textbook! You had to push down the cartridge into the slot using both grips from your hands. It was an amazing piece of machinery, but there was one major flaw... the cost. It was very expensive, so much so, that only a very small crowd could dish out $1,000 for the console, and another $300 for the game cartridge. In my teenage years all I could do was dream that someday I could get my hands on one of these things. The out-of-reach price of the system lead to its demise. And NEO GEO finally abandoned this amazing piece of machinery.

By the mid 1990s home gaming consoles technology had improved dramatically. SEGA was leading the pack providing the SEGA CD, which allowed games to be stored into a disc instead of the more expensive traditional cartridge. One of my favorite arcade game adaption was CAPCOMs Final Fight. It really felt like I had an arcade at home. SEGA then move on to create the SEGA 32X, which extended the SEGA Genesis processing power from 16-bit to 32-bit. This allowed for more better graphics and sound than previously. Now for the first time gamers could experience arcade games like Virtua Fighter and Star Wars Arcade in the comfort of their home.

SEGA then followed up with the SEGA Saturn with games like Virtua Cop, Daytona USA, Night Warriors, Street Fighter Alpha, and X-Men: Children of the Atom. And finally the SEGA Dreamcast. The Dreamcast, with its 128-bit processor, brought true-to-arcade games home in an inexpensive disc format. With games such as CAPCOM vs SNK, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, Mark of the Wolves, King of Fighters, and so many others... it was a dream come true.

But by this time the gaming terrain had gone through some major changes. Arcades were dying out and no longer set the gold standard. Gamers had moved on to 3D free roaming gaming experience, which SONY Playstation consoles and XBOX excelled in. So major arcade developers like SEGA and NEO GEO suffered greatly, and the arcade industry finally died down... until now. Well, sort of.

Recent efforts have been made by developers to bring back retro games, and more specifically arcade games. One of these efforts comes from Arcade1Up. Arcade1Up promises to bring the authentic arcade experience right at home. Cabinets are designed with the original decals and stick configuration. They also offer the option to have the cabinet fitted for sitting down or standing up. The lineup are pretty much all classic arcade games from a wide range of genres. This is nice if you always wanted an authentic arcade machine at home.

Another alternative comes from a company called Polycade. Unlike Arcade1Up, Polycade takes a different approach of, instead of bringing the classic arcade home, they bring a modern spin to the arcade experience. There is only one cabinet with a modern compact design, that hooks up to your living room wall. The machine runs on the Steam software, meaning that you will have access to a wide range of games. They also provide multiple stick configurations that can be easily used, depending on the type of game you are playing.

And finally to wrap things up we have my personal favorite, NEO GEO mini! Ok, this isn't much of an arcade as it is a 100 games-in-one kind of thing. But, this is a NEO GEO with classic NEO GEO arcade games. They really went all out in trying to capture the spirit of the era, but with some modern adaptions. This compact (or mini) arcade will feature 40 games, built in screen, speakers, and arcade stick, optional NEO GEO controller, HDMI to output to your big screen TV, and a nostalgic cabinet design. Two version will be offered, one being an "international" version, which will have 14 games different from the Japanese version. With this tiny-cade gamers will finally be able to experience some of the best games of the era. And as for myself, I will finally get a small piece of that NEO GEO pie that I've been dreaming of.

These amazing machines are not exactly going to bringing back arcades to its haydays, but it sure is a start. I'm very optimistic about the future of arcade games. I think the saturation of so many poorly thought out games has really struck a nerve in gamers. Leading them to search in the past for the essence of what makes a great game. The reemergence of pixelated and arcade style games is testament to that. When all is said and done, I hope we will end up in a new era of games. Ones that capture the spirit of what the arcade games of the past did.

CHE

Is not a professional writer, but just likes writing. The article is strictly his opinion and in no way meant to be taken too seriously.