Where are North America's Arcades?

[weareyoume]

this has been bothering me but why doesnt North America have Arcades???

[Shiva]

Lack of popularity maybe? Arcade conversions for home consoles are very sophisticated and end up cheaper in the long run.

I hear Hong Kong and Japan still have about a bazillion arcades though, moving over there is a serious consideration for me.

[weareyoume]

thx

[Edea]

We used to have tons of arcades. But with the home systems people quit dishing out their hard-earned allowances into the machines so they died out. I know where my quarters used to go every weekend. Occassionally I find a lone machine in a convenient store. :P

[weareyoume]

I wish i could've seen the age of the arcades.....but for F-ZeroX for game cube then how will we get the secret vehicles from the arcades?????

[matt1freek]

yeah i guess it depends where u live..
in big cities like l.a. , san fran , tampa, miami , houston, etc. they have arcades..
i normally go to this one at my fav bowling alley.. they have some nice games there liek sanfran rush 2049 linked 8x, beachhead, police 911, alot of old neo geo.. like metal slug stuff.. even a asteroids machine..
i was looking around everywhere for a fzero ax machine too.. havent seen one yet though..
yeah but they used to be alot more popular.. at the laundromat, gas stations, grocery stores.. everywhere..
used to hit up some ms pacman tabletop, ghost and goblins, tmnt, and double dragon back in the day..

[weareyoume]

thx

[weareyoume]

i forgot tell me if u see a F-Zero arcade

[emuxhaven]

umm up here (Canada BC)we still have lot of arcade machines in those places and universities etc burt havent seen fzero arcade yet .

[weareyoume]

looks like ill have to goto British Columbia.....LONG LIVE CANADA!!!!!!

[Angel316]

the places where they have arcades are theme parks, recreational places like bowling alleys, and of course in BIG citties like here in L.A. Some fast food resturants may have 2-4 machines.

[weareyoume]

thx people for answering my question

[Guerillas]

yeah at a quicky mart i find people playing some jackpot game they play from the morning till the closing. the bad part is that they dont win nothing they just loose money for no reason. there mostly drunk people. they buy there beer sit down and play for hours.

[Vince]

yea I hated that when I drove a big truck...The truckstops up north didn't have any arcades in them....and that was my favorite thing to do in spare time I had..he....he which really was no problem tho because I had a PS2 on my truck :P.
"Just saying" where I live in southern Alabama omfg....in my town we have 2 HUGE arcades that have over 50+ arcades each on top of that just about all the fast food "dinner" type business have them and our bowling alleys have about 15+ in them.

[Guerillas]

yeah they exitst in bowling alleys aslo, and over here theres a mall called gameworks and they have alot fo aracades, and yet another one charles and something i forgot but they also have a huge plces with nothing but arcades. so you actually see alot on malls.

[matt1freek]

yeah and go kart + putt putt places too..
yeah it figures that in alabama they would have a "SUPER" bowling alley..
is it right next to the monster truck show? :lol:

[weareyoume]

i only have seen one Arcade but it was replaced by Pizza Pizza

[Bopig!]

We've got a place called Playdium here in west edmonton mall and it's PACKED with arcade machines. There are also several arcades throughout the major malls in my city, so the arcade scene hasn't quite dried up yet. :D

[brightman]

There are a few large arcades here in NYC, including two huge ones in Time Square... I never went to them though... :whip:

Other than those, arcade cabinets were once a common sight here in convenient stores and comic book stores but all of them seemed to have disappeared in the last few years.

[Orion64]

true...compared to other countries...the US seems to be lacking in the public gaming department. I know in NJ, most of the arcades are either in amusment parks or along the beach...of course...most of the games are pretty crappy...except for DDR :lol:
I dunno...I can't wait to go to Japan next year...Tokyo...the ultimate place to game! :eplus2:

[mbInuYasha]

I dunno abought you guys but in my town there is a massive arcade with this Gundam G Generation network game where there are like 25 of these sit in cock pits and they move when you play... Really good graphics and stuff.. The Arcade will let you order them for your onwn home and connect to their network... the best thing is that they olny take 1 quarter...

[weareyoume]

:D seems like the arcades havent died yet

[Zarggg]

Checking in from Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania... The closest arcade to me (Fun Attic, in the Palmer Park Mall) closed down last year. It was classified as a low-income store, so they got kicked out in favor of Gertrude Hawk. First they moved, then the left. And I have a level 58 Valkyrie, too. :(

Right now, the closest Arcade to me is across the state border, unless that arcade closed down as well. *sigh*

[weareyoume]

it must suck to not have an arcade :bigcry:

[weareyoume]

why do MinyPutts and Bowling Alleys only have arcades??????

[Hakavay]

Where the heck do you guys live? I know for a fact that Phoenix has a medium sized arcade located at the mall (GameWorks) , Austin has a chain of arcades (Dave and Buster's), and New York has a couple, but I've only been to Broadway City Arcade. And it's true that Hong Kong has many big arcades in their many malls/shopping centers, but they are very strict on the age limit (which I believe is 17). Plus, some of the privately owned arcades became limited in numbers because of the very same law. Didn't matter at the time I was there though, I looked tall enough to enter without suspicion :lol: The bigger arcades had many machines (any why not with their size).

[weareyoume]

I LIVE IN CANADA

[filler]

I think arcades are just shrinking and reloacating. There was a boom, and now there is a collapse. I think it's becoming (or will become) more of a retro thing. There were 3 arcades in my area (US, Vermont), two at indoor malls, and one at a strip mall. One closed a couple years ago, that other just recenlty, I think there is one still kicking. The machines are all still out there though, I think they are just getting moved to places that don't have such high over-head, like colleges, or where lot's of people go for recreation, like theme parks. The small arcade is like your frends house, or your PC now. I think there will still be some big arcades for a long time though. There was a great one I went to (I think around Lake Winnipesaukee) with a HUGE second floor full of old arcade machines for $.25. It was a lot of fun.

filler

PS: It might have been one of these at Weirs Beach:

http://www.weirsbeach.com/halfmoon/arcades...yfuncenter.html (http://www.weirsbeach.com/halfmoon/arcades/familyfuncenter.html)
http://www.funspotnh.com/index.html

I've been to a cool bar/arcade/pool-hall in Boston too.... I forget the name though...

[Hakavay]

My college recently added a place where all us students can hang out after class. Billards, ping pong, and a good updated arcade (for those DDR junkies) as well as a couple old favorites. No bar though...oh well.

[Strikerfox]

There are plenty of arcades near me. Gameworks is a chain arcade. I thought it was only here in Phoenix, but then I saw one in Indianapolis. It's great, 2 stories of games. Then there are plenty of mini theme parks here that have arcades within them.

[Cero]

Yea, I've been to a Gameworks out in Ohio. Nice place, even if it is somewhat overly family oriented. They had this 8 screen linked Sega F1 Racing game. Totally humiliated a bunch of people on that thing. :P AND I dont even have a drivers license. XD

[Zarggg]

Bad Cero, showing up those people like that! *whacks you with newspaper*

<_<

[weareyoume]

i probably will have to move to Japan to play good arcades.
so far away though :(
and
im
poor
so there goes that idea :(

[Shiva]

I went down a bowling alley with some arcade machines recently. Here's what I found:

Daytona USA 2: Battle on the Edge (pair, linked)
I hoped this would be the Power Edition (http://www.system16.com/sega/hrdw_model3step2_1.html#dusa2p) for a second, but it wasn't. Suprisingly empty. Probably because the right machine was a bit broken (weird polygons in the distance, nothing major). The left machine was probably better. This is on the Model 3 Step 2.1 (http://www.system16.com/sega/hrdw_model3step2_1.html#dusa2) hardware (making it the most primitive there) and has been dumped (http://unemulated.emuunlim.com/m3status/index.html), but it's heavily protected so that's not going anywhere.

Tokyo Cop
This one was also empty. Couldn't figure out how to play this properly. It felt a lot like GTA3's vigilante mode except with a nice seat, force feedback and inferior graphics. I recognized it was from Gaelco (http://www.system16.com/other/hrdw_gaelco3d.html#tc), so Aaron Giles (http://www.aarongiles.com/) might be working on emulation. If it's dumped.

Time Crisis 3 (twin?)
Another one empty for most of the time. Felt a bit weird using a plasticy handgun as a handgun, machine gun, grenade laucher and shotgun. The fact that it had been double tethered (badly, reducing the ammount of movememt by about 20%) didn't help. The game actually felt a little akward and a bit too easy (coming from me, that's saying a lot). After a little looking, I found this is by Namco and on their System 246 (http://www.system16.com/namco/hrdw_system246.html#tc3) hardware, so emulation will be tough.

Vampire Night
Again, empty as long as I was looking at it. I thought this would be OK, but passed it by for whatever reason. This is also by Namco and on the very same System 246 (http://www.system16.com/namco/hrdw_system246.html#vn) hardware.

The House of the Dead III
Didn't play this either. Looked really fun, I would've liked to give that shotgun a try. But it was too busy, I think there was already a queue. Pity. It's by Sega and on their Chihiro (http://www.system16.com/sega/hrdw_chihiro.html#hotd3) hardware, so emulation on the PC is very realistic. Unless Sega put some nasty protection on it, which is entirely likely.

Virtua Cop 3
Right next to House of the Dead 3 and nearly as popular it seems. I would've liked to try this too, but there was no chance. This is also by Sega and on the Chihiro (http://www.system16.com/sega/hrdw_chihiro.html#vc3), so emulation status is same as The House of the Dead III.

There was other stuff there, but it was either mechanical, or didn't catch my eye enough for me to remember their names.

[weareyoume]

Then im moving beside a bowling alley....and the bowling alley better have an arcade.....or else
:snipersmile: BOWLING/\ALLEY

[Ajax]

I have an arcade near my house that is called the nickle cade. All the games there are just a nickel (exept for DDR which charges a whole "whopping" 5 nickles), and if your a regular. They waive the $1.50 admission fee. They even have tickets there too. If you get 250,000 tickets, you can get a tv, or a VCR. But i honestly think that no one ever gotten that many tickets :D

I guess i'm lucky to have an arcade near me much less one that doesan't eat your hard earned pocket change. I havn't been there in a while, but i'm sure it's still around as it is fairly popular.

P.S. sorry if i'm reviving a somewhat stale topic.