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Wii threatens Japanese arcade industry |
Listed in: Wii Tags: Reuters
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After the 32-bit era was ushered in, arcade gaming took heavy hits across the planet. In Japan, though things have remained relatively good until recently.Reuters reports that the US$ 6.9 billion industry in Japan is caving in under heavy competition from current-gen consoles. The biggest raider happens to be Nintendo's Wii, which is selling like mad all over the planet.
Japanese gamers now find themselves at home, enjoying active gaming that once was offered only in special arcade machines. The motion-sensing advent has apparently taken away the one trump card that amusement centers had over consoles.
Jay Defibaugh, an analyst at Credit Suisse. explains the trend from a business standpoint. "A large element of the problem is innovation and in Japan, it's pretty clear that Nintendo has been the leader in innovation," he says.
Japanese children see it in a much simpler light. A 15-year old student described arcades as "noisy, expensive, and cigarette smoke-filled." He said he would rather go to a theme park or play at home.
Reuters further reports that numerous branches of major chains have started shutting down. With the way things are going, arcades could be facing major changes in design and structure soon if they are to survive.
Via Reuters
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It used to take months, or even years for an arcade game to show up on a home console. That time window is now gone. Even the argument for arcade games that use peripherals is disappearing. Games that use drums, guitars, dance pads, racing wheels, games that use special cards, etc. now all have home versions.
Full cabinet immersion games like Initial D, the full Gundam cabinet game, are still unlikely to have home versions, and people here still come to the arcades to play the claw machine games and go to the picture booths when they have free time.
(I still think the prices are ridiculous. Each play in the arcade cost about $1-$4. But maybe that's why the American arcade scene disappeared, just charging 25 cents.)
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There alot of uses on qj who own a Wii(including myslef) but also the other consoles. And many of us preffer one over the other or all of them.
In your rant you make little to no sense in what you say and 99.9% is bull' just like "Mister Nonsene" who need to grow up and stop acting like 12 year olds fighting over consoles in a playground.
PS: For the love of god please learn to type so you posts dont look like a 7 year old kid kept hitting the ? key everytime he typed a word.
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Arcades in my area are booming. But then again these are cheep crap arcades either and most of them incorporate dinning and drinking. Not to mention arcades in theme parks and vacation spots continue to do well in the states.
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..and you pretty much went completely off topic.
Anyways, concerning arcades, I personally think they are dieing too. I remember back when I lived in Tennessee my dad used to take my sis and I to this big arcade area, now upon a recent visit it is closed, and other familiar arcade-containing places are dead too. Living in Florida, the only arcade-rich place is GameWorks, but anywhere else I've seen that have arcade areas don't have many people playing them. I miss those Sega dogfighting airplane games...
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