Attract Mode: Critical Failure (k3nshi) (k3nshi)

Earlier today me and a friend were in the arcade at London's Trocadero tourist and school kid ghetto. If it is a fair representation of arcades today, then the scene is in a truly dismal state. So many old, or old looking games: Daytona is still there and going strong. Daytona 2 was not being played at all. Spazmania and their ilk were going strong. Everything just seemed uninspired and lacking any appeal.

We spotted a Star Wars Pod Racing arcade game. Two people were playing it, and my friend thought it looked pretty cool. I thought it was a perfect example of where arcades have gone wrong. In an arcade I expect to see games that I would not imagine to be able to play on home hardware. A Star Wars Pod Racing game should have graphics comparable to the films, not to other 3D racing games which can be reasonably reproduced on home consoles. Remember the days you walked into an arcade and could only DREAM of playing those games at home? Thats what is missing - at the Trocadero at least.

Ok the costs... THINK OF THE COSTS of all that mega-hardware and software. I understand. But why not produce arcade hardware around high end PCs and mega gfx cards? This would be a lot better than filling the arcades with aging Model 2 and Model 3 arcade hardware. You could also cut software costs by building on top of APIs like OpenGL and DirectX. Surely this is the only way forward for the arcade industry?