If you want to play Galaxian 3 there are a few options. If you were at the Osaka Gardening expo between April and September 1990 you could have played the 28 player version before it was quickly dismantled. After that you could have played the downgraded six player version. 3 of those units still exist. One is in a mall in New Hampshire and hasn't worked for several years, one is in the private collection of a mentally ill Swedish man who charges people money to enter his house and take pictures of the machine but doesn't let anyone play it, and the third is still in Osaka Japan. Down from that is the PS1 port which isn't even worth discussing. Down from there even maybe it works in MAME. Who cares.

>One is in a mall in New Hampshire and hasn't worked for several years
1. It's not a mall. It's a stand-alone building that's three stories tall, with the second and third story being pretty much all 00s arcade games. I've been there personally.
2. They got Galaxian 3 working earlier this year.

>>11786819
Until urban youths decolonize it again.

>>11786830
Anon. It's in an upper-middle class white neighborhood, across the street from a sushi place. There it is on the left. (with the correct pic this time)

There are no urban youths there. It's fucking New Hamshire.

>>11786803 (OP)
>If you want to play Galaxian 3

I don't.

/thread

>>11786819
>They got Galaxian 3 working earlier this year.
>working
Barely. They don't have spare parts to fix it back to 100%. Namco hasn't made the parts in 30 years. They had to jury rig the surviving parts together with "bubblegum, duct tape, and hope".

- The CRT projectors are malfunctioning and need serious repairs and refurbishment. Or replace them with modern projectors if they can't fix the old 1993 projectors.

- The custom laser disc player uses moving parts and barely functions even after emergency repairs. It's too old and unreliable.

- The sound system needs to be repaired or replaced. The speakers crackle and malfunction while playing.

Even then, the Galaxian3 machine overheats if you leave it running for more than 90 minutes. And they keep it turned off unless you specially request it to be turned on.

Who know how long these emergency repairs will last?


>>11786803 (OP)
There's actually a 4th machine I know of. It's sitting disassembled in the Southern USA in some dudes garage for 10 years. He is just hoarding it for some reason, and has no plans to put it back together. So it sits in pieces

>and the third is still in Osaka Japan.

Don't forget the Japanese seem to take some weird perverse pleasure in not helping other Galaxian3 collectors. They will not provide any help, support, or even basic tips to keep other machines running. It's weird. It's not enough for the Japanese to have a surviving Galaxian3 machine, but they also want every other Galaxian3 machine outside Japan to fail and disappear. Asians are strange.

>>11786803 (OP)
Are there really NO other surviving arcade machines of Galaxian3? I remember playing this at Dave and Busters. They used to be everywhere. I refuse to accept that only 3 machines are left in the entire world.

>>11786942
eh throw some money at the Chinese they can probably make you some repro parts

Nothing's not repairable it's just a matter of how much you're willing to spend on it.

those big box Namco cabs were always unreliable even back then, the graphics processors overheated and fucked themselves

>>11787841
>eh throw some money at the Chinese they can probably make you some repro parts

Is this a joke? There is absolutely no way I trust Chinese made electronics and parts. They cut way too much corners.

>>11786803 (OP)
>Who cares
Great way to end your thread.

>>11787975
Who cares if it works in MAME.

>>11787979
It's weird how you're the OP and yet you have zero interest in your own thread.

>>11787979
Except it doesn't. Mame has hundreds of games that don't work properly. Many don't even start up.

>>11787839
Gaplus was called Galaxian 3 in the US.

>>11786942
It costs money to maintain specialised hardware in one country, it costs more to maintain it in another. If it's after market, there is no need to spend the money on the materials or expertise.

>>11786803 (OP)
I don't want to play Galaxian 3.
The game would get boring after the first three or four rides. Can you even lose?

>>11788282
Galaxian3 is actually sneaky. The game scales up the difficultly the more players are playing the game. With a max of 6 players at once. So the game still remains challenging.

>>11786803 (OP)
PS1 port is pretty good.

You're also never going to get to play Ridge Racer in the big model car.

>>11788298
>You're also never going to get to play Ridge Racer in the big model car.
Elaborate.

>>11788361
Holy newfag...

>>11788373
Anon. They still sell racecar beds. I can buy one and play Ridge Racer Playstation easily. So stop with the nonsense. I could probably order the bed in red color too.

>>11788383

>>11787859
>>11787841
The GPUs are probably the most proprietary, hard to replace part in there. Take good care of those things and make sure they're cooled properly and don't overheat.

>>11787859
>those big box Namco cabs were always unreliable even back then, the graphics processors overheated and fucked themselves
We used to add extra computer fans to those Namco arcade boards because they ran hot and we didn't want to risk them burning out. Namco gave us only 1 fan but we would add 2 more just to be sure. It was a huge pain to send the arcade board into Namco for repairs. So adding extra fans was worth it.

Ridge Racer was famous for the GPU boards cooking themselves to death. They had a couple of boards sandwiched in a tight metal case with only one small fan to cool the entire stack.

>>11786803 (OP)
I went 2 weeks ago. It was turned off and not working. I left disappointed.

>>11788570
Did Namco do this on purpose so arcade owners would have to spend more money to order more parts from Namco? Or was it just an accidental bad design?

>>11790085
just stupid, short-sighted design. the cabs were over $10,000 and they decided to knock a few cents off the hideous cost of building them by omitting cooling fans and whatnot.

>>11788570
Is that why I haven't seen this Ridge Racer cabinet in 20 years at any of my local arcades, but I still sometimes see the original Daytona USA? What a shame. I actually really like the original ridge racer.

>>11790128
yes they were notoriously unreliable

>>11790128
That's a pretty slick looking cabinet. You would think that even if the arcade board fails, they could still preserve it by throwing in a PC inside. Or maybe an Fpga Mister.

>>11790085
>Or was it just an accidental bad design?
The more you learn about arcade hardware the more it's obvious EVERY company takes a "fuck it, it works, ship it" approach. They are all riddled with last minute bodges and a lack of thought about the long term use of them. I imagine the thinking is "why bother putting in the effort? Just wait till they fail and fix what breaks. If it's popular enough maybe we'll do a Rev.2, if not we'll discontinue it and tell the operators to hand them in for a (small) discount on another game."
But then those pesky collectors keep wanting the damn things to run for longer than a caravan weekend and they keep bothering the ornery JPs for parts and advice. Damn those scurrilous blackguards.

>>11790128
>>11790091
>$10,000
How tf does that cost $10,000? I'm guessing the arcade board and electronics inside costs 1,000 to 2,000 to make. The cabinet and TV are probably another 1,000 to 2,000. So maybe the whole thing costs 4,000 to make. So charging 10,000 is crazy. That's a 250% profit. Crazy. Maybe I'm wrong tho. I dunno.

>>11788295
So can you lose?

>>11790458
The even crazier thing is up until the mid-2000s operators still wanted $5000 for a used machine.

>>11790902
>So can you lose?
Yes. You have a shield energy bar. You will die if you take too many hits. Also it will say "mission unsuccessful" if you fail to achieve objectives, or kill certain enemies. Then you have to start the level over.

>>11787965
ive used chinese repro parts to repair ps1s and ps2s for a long, long time. no issues.

>>11790982
What's your Discord?

>>11790902
Imagine being this dense about a game lol

>>11790982
I've used and worked with Chinese companies in the past for Chinese arcade machines. I've learned the hard way that they are questionable quality. Some companies cut too much corners. And their after sales customer service is non-existent.

They are happy to communicate when trying to sell you products. But once they sell you something, they disappear off the face of the earth and ignore emails and calls. Need a replacement part to repair something in their machine? Forget it.

I don't think they understand what customer service is.

just recreate it in ue5 from scratch if you want to play it so bad

>>11791112
The PS1 port is basically the arcade game, just with only four players maximum. It even comes with an exclusive mode to make up for the fact it's a port. OP could really just play that, and wouldn't really be missing much in terms of gameplay. The 'sequel', Rise of Gourb, hasn't been ported to anything.

>>11791128
The PS1 version has noticeably inferior graphics vs arcade.

>>11788361
I don't know how many of them were made but there were Ridge Racer full scale arcade machines in some places.

>>11791173
Deal with it, if the superior version isn't available elsewhere, there's nothing you can do.

>>11791128
>gameplay
arcade games are more about the experience, you can't emulate that with shaders

Galaxian 3 has literally been dumped and can be played through MAME

>>11791218
This is so awesome. How come I haven't heard or seen this before?

>>11791413
Because you're new.

>>11791218
>I don't know how many of them were made
Not that anon but...

Worldwide? Around 50 of them for sure. Maximum 100 (I guess). Its hard to be exactly sure. Namco isn't sharing the numbers, and because anyone with $350,000 could buy one. You could even have it delivered to your door. And in the 1990s, there wasn't a Wikipedia or Arcade tracker website to keep track of all the machines.

I remember see a Ridge Racer Full Scale at a theme park arcade while on vacation with my family. Then seeing another one in Las Vegas like the following year. Then seeing it again while in California. Then another one some place else (Might have been a large Dave and Busters or another "big" arcade). So at least multiple times in my youth.

As a kid, I had no idea Ridge Racer Full Scale machines were "rare". I just assumed that's how arcades were and every big might have a Ridge Racer Full Scale if there was enough room. Kind of like how I just expected to see a "Time Crisis" game in an arcade. They just were "around" in the 1990s. Then one day I gradually stopped seeing Ridge Racer Full Scales anymore. I never questioned it and gradually forgot about them.

It was only last year when I remembered a "red car arcade game" from my memories as a kid, and I wanted to know the arcade cabinet's name. I had to use Google and ask people on a forum. I was nostalgic and wanted to play it again. Then I found out the whole history of it and how it was supposedly expensive and rare. And no more machines exist anymore. I was surprised.

I really took it for granted as a kid that games would always be around. No idea they destroy these machines after a while. Ugh.

>>11786803 (OP)
If you want to play Super Mario Bros, the are a few options. You could get a cartridge, or a SMB + Duck Hunt cartridge. You could also download a ROM. Finally, you could call Shigeru Miyamoto, tell him you hate Supa Donkey Kongu very much, and he'll let you play for free. 1 player version.

>>11790196
go on AtariAge Forum and they have many stories about poorly designed arcade cabs

>>11791857
*Arcade Museum Forum I mean

>>11791454
>>11791415
>>11791218
I honestly cannot believe none of these ridge racer full scales are still around. These were mass produced. There must be a handful of them in storage somewhere at least right?

>>11792221
i'd assume most of the CRT projectors dies

>>11792221
You know not everyone stays working at the same job forever, right?

You can just buy projectors and light guns, you know.

>>11792261
We have arcade cabinets from the 1970s still in some places. So why can't ridge racer full scale still be around? It's a 90s cabinet

>>11792294
Arcade cabinets from the 70s don't have three CRT projectors that rapidly burn out from being driven hard enough to project. Digital projector tech just wasn't there when they would have needed replacement.

i played Star Wars Battle Pod

it has a nice irl wind effect because it's windy flying your WW2 hot rod plane in space

>>11792294
Same reason VCRs last longer than Laserdisc players; less complex with less moving parts.

>>11792294
They were custom built for their locations. I'd post an article about one found in the UK but the system thinks it's spam.

>>11792294
Exactly as he said, it had a couple of GPU boards that overheat and are inadequately cooled.

>>11792335
Then why do we have other surviving machines from the same era like Indy 500 from Sega.

>>11792768
Popularity. Daytona USA cabs break constantly. There's a blog from a guy who repairs them and he lists all the many ways they were basically guaranteed to fail due to design mistakes. But he can repair them because they were so popular there's spare parts to be found and many parts can be replaced with new-old-stock OEM parts.
Special cabs are a bigger problem. Small production runs, many unique parts. Can't just put out a call for any arcade operators looking to liquidate old machines and expect a response when by this point every machine has already been cannibalised to keep the one or two collector's machines running.

>>11792857
those mainly being the thermal environment, this is one of the most common faults in arcade cabs. ICs that run hot and aren't cooled properly.

>>11792335
>Digital projector tech just wasn't there when they would have needed replacement.
Cabinet was made in 1993. Hypothetically give the projectors a 5 to 10 year Lifespan. They could have used digital projectors from the early 2000s.

I remember a guy's repair blog for Double Dragon cabs and the most common failure point appeared to be the graphics ROMs. One thing that stood out was that the graphics ROMs were plastic while the program ROMs were ceramic. It occurred to me that that was likely intentional--if the graphics ROM failed the game would still run albeit with glitch graphics but without the program ROM it wouldn't run at all so it was more important that those didn't fail; you could continue to use the cab until replacing the graphics ROMs.

>>11792768
Does that have nine (9) CRTs?

>>11793119
>nine
It has 24 CRT projectors.

>>11793083
Arcade cabs would also tend to push the limits of a lot of chip tech. They'd have dense, hot-running dies that were doing too much work for the process used.

Most arcade businesses pushed the limits of their electronics. They would run their arcade cabinets almost 24/7 and leave them turned on. It doesn't matter what kind of electronics you use. All of them would eventually fail under those conditions.

I have a CRT TV I bought in 2002. It still works great. That's because I only turn it on when I need it. Then turn it off I don't run it 24/7.

>>11786819
>>11786840
>>11786942
>>11789321
So wait, can you play it or not?

PS1 + Component cables + Retrotink 4k + 4k projector and screen

There. You have the most legit, attainable versions of Galaxian 3 and Ridge Racer Full Scale. Provide four sticks for Galaxian. Get a junker car or maybe even a body kit for something nicer, and throw a racing wheel in it. Done. You have to get creative sometimes.

>>11793279
Ridge Racer Full Scale had the air conditioner fan blow air in your face as your accelerated and changed depending on your speed.

>PS1
Ew.

>>11792768
Sega's hardware was SUPER reliable. Sure, they had some absolute duds over the years (the Hikaru, in particular, is notorious for being so fragile that even shipping them is dangerous), but the majority of their hardware had super longevity.

>>11793295
Debatable. They were a pain in the butt to repair when they break. Especially model series and Sega Model 3 games. Sega's solution was to just stack more and more boards ontop of eachother. Then add more boards for each part of the machine. Force feedback? Add a board for that. Audio? Add another board for that. Steering? Add another hoard for that. Lighting? Add a board for that. Etc etc. Ridiculous.

>>11793293
Just play the PS1 version with a fan blowing next to you.

>>11793247
leaving stuff running constantly is not as bad as repeatedly power cycling it especially if there's hot running components

>>11793327
that might have made them so durable as he said because they spaced out the different subsystems more instead of trying to have a few overworked and hot running ICs do everything. one chip trying to do the work of five chips might decrease reliability.

I guess that's why Sega lost so much money in the end they built stuff too well and couldn't make a profit from it unlike Namco and other penny pinching competitors.

anyway from that guy's repair log of Double Dragon it seemed 90% of hardware faults in those were the GROMs. otherwise that seems to be a quite reliable cab.

>>11793354
Sega did a lot of sneaky cost cutting stuff too. For example they refuse to publish documentation and schematics about their boards. So a lot of the time you had no idea what many of the chips do. You will spend forever with a probe trying to figure out which of the hundreds of chips on the board have failed. Sega wanted you to just buy an entirely new board. Or ship it into them to be serviced (which you had to pay for).
Sega power supplies were questionable and often unreliable with age. If the PSU burns out a chip, then good figuring out which chip is burned out. You sit there having to test each one.

>>11793395
>>11793354
that's more like the IBM mainframe/mini philosophy where the hardware was built really well but they gave you zero info about it and you didn't know what anything on the boards did

>>11793354
larger chip count means culminatively better reliability since you're not overworking a handful of chips as much and the system functions are spread out more but when something does go wrong it can be harder to diagnose

>>11786942
>There's actually a 4th machine I know of. It's sitting disassembled in the Southern USA in some dudes garage for 10 years. He is just hoarding it for some reason, and has no plans to put it back together.
Wonder if that's the one that was in a Dave & Busters outside of Atlanta about twenty years ago. I'm still kicking myself for not trying it but it cost a lot of credits and I had no idea about its significance.

>>11792768
>>11793157
that setup is modular. if one of them goes down, the rest continue 100% working. they could have a spare in the basement

>>11786803 (OP)
>Who cares.
My thoughts exactly, why did you make this stupid fucking thread

>>11793567
>didn't bump when this was posted
Can't bump your own thread, you muffin-brain OP.

the early 80s Sega cabs are pretty simple it's in 86 onward when they turn into a maze of 12 different boards

>>11793534
>but when something does go wrong it can be harder to diagnose
MASSIVELY harder to diagnose. Especially if the machine spits out random error codes and Sega won't tell you what it means. And that's if you are lucky the machine still boots.

>>11793534
>>11793354
it goes back to the Atari 8-bit computers where they split the graphics system into two ICs (ANTIC and GTIA) to avoid overworking one IC while Commodore had a very busy and hot-running VIC-II that performed a lot ot tasks. guess which was more reliable?

>>11793542
In the USA (especially in middle America and Southern USA) there are lots of collectors that have storage units with random arcade machines sitting inside for decades. It's very interesting. Sometimes you hear about this story of arandom building and discover some long lost rare arcade machine still inside.

>>11793542
1990s arcades are so weird.

There are so many lost machines from the 90s era because of their delicate arcade boards or just low production runs where only like a few hundred were made. Also many owners just carelessly destroying them. 80s cabs got so much more love from collectors

There are actually several arcade machines that are completely lost. For example Taito released Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga Episode III (pic related). A very unique looking arcade Cabinet that was sold in the USA. Apparently every single one has been destroyed. All of them. No one has even seen the original cabinet anymore.

90s cabs were a lot more complicated and hard to repair, and some also like CPS 3 had deliberately self-destructing boards as anti-piracy measures.

>have the program code stored not in mask ROMs but battery backed RAM that will lose its contents if the battery backup is disconnected or the battery runs out
>once that happens the thing is a chicken with its head cut off
>battery runs out? well you can always send it to Capcom to have them put in a new battery and re-load the program code at least until they end support for the cab then too bad sucker

this was a new-level of short-sighted stupidity you wouldn't believe except it actually happened

>>11793395
>Sega power supplies were questionable and

which again is mostly thermal-related, they get rather toasty when running

>>11793603
Let's see.

>>11793894
Oh look at that I bumped my own thread. This board is a short bus.

>>11793668
There's a pinball museum near me with hundreds of machines. It's only opened four weekends per year.

>>11791276
Uh.

>>11793778
Was it that hard to put a crowbar in the PSU to cut off the power if an overvoltage condition was detected? I mean the fucking Apple II had had that in its PSU since 1977.

>>11794535
>overvoltage condition
More likely it would be undervolting which is just as bad

>>11794535
if it saves Namco $2 in parts then yes. Yes it would.

>>11794239
skill issue

>>11794582
undervoltage will cause a chip to glitch but it won't physically damage it unless it's early 80s cabs with 4116 RAMs that need triple voltages or they'll self-destruct

>>11794664
Yes that won't actually damage components just cause them to not work properly. Overvolting will fry stuff.

>>11794664
Williams cabs were bad for that and yes the PSUs had no crowbar circuit. what a crowbar basically is is a circuit that if overvoltage occurs it will short the power rail to ground so the voltage doesn't reach the PCB.

>>11794585
>if it saves Namco $2 in parts then yes. Yes it would.
Namco sells Galaxian3 for $100,000. There's no way they are that cheap

>>11786803 (OP)
Ok, but like who cares? Are you going to be on your deathbed after a long life and be crying about how you never had a chance to spend 15 minutes playing Galaxian 3?

>>11794926
>Are you going to be on your deathbed after a long life and be crying about how you never had a chance to spend 15 minutes playing Galaxian 3?

Uh yes? Obviously.

Many of us have a bucket list of games we want to play in our lives. Me personally? Galaxian3 is one of them. But Sega R360 is higher on my bucket list. I was a kid when it came out. I saw it once at Disneyland in the 90s. By the time I was an adult, all the machines were gone for some reason.

I have no idea why so many 1990s deluxe machines were destroyed. To all the older people on this board, what is your deal? Why was your generation so obsessed with destroying these deluxe machines? You couldn't save a handful of them for future generations? Why not?

>>11794936
Most of those machines succumbed to time and it wasn't considered worth it by the OPs to try to restore them, since the new hotness was coming and the trashed cabinet was already taking up valuable room that could be used for more income.

Also the people in the 1990s who had these would have been 40+ years old then, which would be either Boomers or the generations older than they were.

>>11794936
>To all the older people on this board, what is your deal? Why was your generation so obsessed with destroying these deluxe machines?
You're saying this as if we weren't kids when these things weren't up and running. Take the hint, upkeep is expensive, especially when it's something that's no longer on a shop floor. Also, take it up with who you vote for.

>>11794972
>>11794957
Some of you pepple claim to be old and remember the 1980s and repair arcade cabinets. Stop lying. I know some of you are here.

>>11795261
repair doesn't mean they owned it, and a big specialized cabinet isn't at all the same as a vanilla Galaxian 1 or World Series Baseball machine.
there's probably a 60+ year old clunking around /vr/, wouldn't be surprised

>>11794936
The same reason most people don't think to "preserve" their vending machines when they stop working. It's served its purpose, so it goes in the trash if it can't be fixed.

>>11795745
>The same reason most people don't think to "preserve" their vending machines when they stop working
Actually this is a real thing. There is a vending machine collector community. Just like arcade collectors.

>>11795261
I'm 34, do the math.

>>11786803 (OP)
>If you were at the Osaka Gardening expo between April and September 1990 you could have played the 28 player version before it was quickly dismantled.
I don't understand the Japanese obsession with building theme park and theme park rides, but then rapidly disassembling them only a short time afterwards.

Americans will build a ride and make it last for many, many, years. Disneyland, Disney world, Universal Studios, etc all have rides that last for years. The Back to the Future ride lasted 16 YEARS before being closed down.

Arcade cabs are kind of the low man on the totem pole of electronics reliability.

>business equipment has to work because vital data depends on it
>consumers buying stuff for their household will get really pissed if stuff breaks
But arcade cabs? They just have to work eight months to a year before they're replaced with the next hot cab. Durability and longevity are not often taken into consideration.

>>11796245
The answer is usually money.

>>11796245
That specifically was an Expo (world's fair) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_International_des_Expositions those things are always temporary. The US hasn't hosted one in 40+ years.
>I don't understand the Japanese obsession with building theme park and theme park rides, but then rapidly disassembling them only a short time afterwards.
The only way I can think to justify it is they have some dumb idea that these can be like carnival flat rides that travel. Comparing temp events to Disney or even six flags really isn't fair. They have more in common with the State fair of Texas and it's 24 days a year run. The Disney, without saying Tokyo Disney, equivalent is something like Nagoya spa park.

>>11796332
In the 1990s, The 28 person 3D Galaxian theme park ride must have been incredibly expensive to develop and manufacture. Why didn't Namco leave it permanently displayed? Even if the Expo was temporary, surely they could have moved it to more permanent location? Namco has tons of arcades and theme parks IIRC.

>>11796341
Cost of keeping it operating and maintained which must have been hideously expensive.

See, what System 22 cabs had was this metal box that had all the GPU boards sandwiched in them with very poor heat dissipation and the things just cooked themselves in a relatively short time.

>>11796341
Well given it was Expo, companies have historically done a lot of really stupid things at them. The 60s New York world's fair was a massive corporate black hole(unless you were Disney), justified because it sold thier brands. Namco may have just viewed it as an overpriced tech demo to show look what we can do.

>>11796358
An arcade I worked at part time had several of these for their older Namco cabs. The arcade tech had cut open the sides of metal box and bolted on 2 extra fans. It seemed to solve all the problems.

>>11796404
>>11796341
>>11796345
It was moved they put it at wonder egg park here it is in video
https://youtu.be/vyISE0weAp4
https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ナムコ・ワンダーエッグ
Checking the jap wiki for the lake you get this line
>ギャラクシアン3 - ドルアーガの塔と人気を二分していた、パークを代表するアトラクション。同じく国際花と緑の博覧会から移設されたものだが、ワンダーエッグ用に改良が加えられている。
Deepl translation
>Galaxian 3 - The park's most popular attraction, which was split in popularity between Galaxian 3 and Druaga's Tower. It was also transferred from the International Garden and Greenery Exposition, but has been modified for the Wonder Egg.
Also of note wince were on this the park actually inhereted the tower of druaga game from the expo too.

The game is nothing special.

>>11796425
>>11796404
>>11796345
>>11796341
>>11796332
>>11796245
>>11795801
I can tell a lot of you are too young in this thread. The Galaxian3 theme park ride WAS mass produced and exported to other Countries. Canada has one, USA had one, and several other countries had them.

The problem is that this was 1990s. No internet back then, and Marketing and promotion were done with paper and magazines. Not on the internet. Very few records exist today. A lot of these machines were set up in theme parks and tourist destinations, ran for several years, and then quietly dismantled. No fanfare. No people on YouTube making videos about saying goodbye. Nope. The machine was one running one day, and the next day it was simply turned off for the last time. Then dismantled. That's it.

There are no "digital records" for the internet find. Only old magazines, newspaper clippings (maybe), and maybe a photo/video that tourists took...if you are lucky.

Traveling was much more special back in the 80s and 90s because seeing things around the world literally could be a "once in a lifetime" event. Something you see on a trip to Hawaii or Canada, could be gone the next time you visit.

Arcades were opening and closing all the time. People didn't take pictures of most arcade businesses because they were too common. It's like asking why you didn't take pictures of your local grocery store. Most people didn't care.

There was no YouTube to save videos of these rides and machines. Very few people carried film cameras in their pockets let alone video cameras. And sometimes the ride operators would forbid photography and video.

It was simply a different time back then. Many companies went all out on making these rides because there was no other way to get the publics attention. Not every company had Disney levels of money to buy commercials on TV to promote themselves. Most could only rely on word of mouth, sending out promotional flyers, and newspaper ads (maybe).

>>11796472
Just gonna say I had it on PSX and liked it a lot, that's all.

>>11796412
see, adding those 2 extra fans at the factory would have cost Namco another $10 their Yakuza investors weren't willing to pay for so it was up to you to do their homework for them

>>11796472
Videos aren't the same as actually being there.

>>11796472
that's the most 90s picture i've ever seen

>>11796472
Wait I'm confused. How does it game work? If it's an "on rails shooter" then how does it work when the screen is 360 degrees?

>>11796531
Everyone is sitting at one of those screens.

>>11796412
Adding those 2 extra fans at the factory would have cost Namco an additional $10 and their Yakuza investors weren't willing to spring for it.

>>11796531
>>11796550
Think of the center structure as a large plane flying through the sky. You are all flying in the same direction, but getting swarmed by enemies from all sides.

Like an American B-17 bomber flying over Germany in World War 2. The bomber has multiple gunner positions to shoot down German fighters as you move in one direction.

>>11796558
I thought it was Sega that had shady Yakuza origins?

>>11793603
>why would someone sage their response to a thread they thing is retarded

>>11793348
this. especially true for modern PCs.

>>11796558
namco and nintendo are actually pretty free of yak influences. namco just didn't care because whatever, the arcade machines would only be up for a year anyhow.

>>11796584
not quite
research (((david rosen)))

>>11796753
wtf are you talking about? Solid-state PCs aren't failing from thermal cycling, or at all.

Not much besides refrigeration is harmed by short cycling. You'll almost always end up spending more on energy than hardware if you leave other things on just to have them on.

>>11796769
Modern PCs are made of CMOS chips that don't generate any significant heat except the GPU and CPU which have fans anyway. If you go back to the 80s however lots of stuff was NMOS chips that do generate noticeable heat and a lot of power cycling could fuck them up (meaning it could cause the die to detach from the bonding wires/chip package). It's a big problem with vintage arcade cabs because they had many hot-running NMOS components and often were poorly cooled.

>>11796760
so i was reminded of people saying Commodore had shitty overheating chips and shitty PSUs and Bil Herd was like "what are you all lookin at me for? we only intended the things to last 3 years not my fault."

So basically when you want a really durable IC you use ceramic packaging. The military uses all ceramic ICs because the chip is much more resistant to thermal faults and use in harsh environments. They're too expensive and heavy for regular use in consumer equipment though.

>>11796753
>>11796769
>>11796797
i've only ever seen capacitor plagued PCs fail, and more on time would speed that up

one of my GPUs blew up in front of me while i was playing Garry's Mod

>>11791276
It's not really that simple.
The game was running on a variant of the Namco System 21 board with a LaserDisc player attached (Which is not emulated and nobody has brothered to do so).
The LD of the game was dumped but good luck making it work.
At this point, it would be more convenient just remaking the whole game on some gane engine.
https://archive.org/details/galaxian3_202403
https://archive.org/details/galaxian3_attack_of_the_zolgear

>>11796847
>LaserDisc player attached (Which is not emulated and nobody has brothered to do so).
I almost don't want to ask, but why not? Emulator bros are pretty autistic and hyper focused. I'm surprised they would let this slide and not work on it.

See an NMOS chip is steady-state it needs power continuously flowing to all transistors on the die to hold their state while CMOS only uses a very tiny amount of current to hold the transistor's state and full voltage is only used when switching states. They used NMOS parts in the 80s because they were easier to manufacture and ran faster with the manufacturing tech of the day. As manufacturing tech improved they gradually disappeared. The downside was that NMOS chips used a lot of power and could get hot. They're also not as electrically clean as CMOS chips, they generate more RFI interference and the chip can have glitchy behavior due to how NMOS logic works; in some cases like with Commodore ICs this could be exploited for useful purposes.

>>11796869
Is the reward worth it in the end though?

>>11796872
Isn't there like dozens of laserdisc arcade games? Especially from the 1980s. Stuff like Dragons Lair and Space Ace seem pretty popular.

>>11796869
LDs are completely analog.

There's some emulators that just slap a video overlay around stuff while emulating the software, I want to say a MSX emulator does this.

I don't know how DAPHNE works. The last time I messed around with it it was mostly video files.

Supposedly there's some guy working on emulating the Pioneer LaserActive but that seems to have bottomed out a while ago.

>>11796760
Nintendo is the company that used to make playing cards and Yakuza people would go to the factory and inspect them to make sure they met their specifications.

>>11796924
I've never seen these stories. Can you link some?

>>11796871
afaik CMOS chips don't generate significant heat until the transistor count approaches 1 million

>>11797106
Yeh the first x86 CPU to need a heat sink was the 486 and it had 1 million transistors.

>>11796584
Disregard all Yakuza discussion on /vr/.

>>11796472
You HIGHLY underestimate theme park faggots and their ability to sniff out maps of theme parks and their associated brochures, all of which would have had mention of a ride as big as Galaxian 3. If specific theme parks had the ride, those autists would know about it now.

>>11797129
>theme park faggots and their ability to sniff out maps of theme parks
Nah. 99% are Dependent on the internet. They aren't true hardcore theme park fans. If you took away the internet, they would struggle. And even the most hardcore theme park fan is limited in what they can fully pay attention to. Things fall through the cracks.

I remember one Capcom cab (Final Fight?) that had an issue with a hot GPU that would self-destruct but subsequent revisions fixed that. In that case they did multiple revisions of the chipset which not all arcade boards got, some were one-and-done jobs.

>>11797125
Hard to do that when Sega literally makes Yakuza games as their main franchise. And even in the game the main character goes to Sega arcades run by Yakuza members.

>>11786803 (OP)
>>11786942
Does it work or not? Can we play it or not? Some people are saying it's broken again.

Namco if anything were one of the least Yakuza-involved arcade companies. Sega and Konami were definitely down with them though.

i wonder if the emulation ever gets decent if you could have a custom build of MAME just to replace the PCB at least

>>11792221
they weren't mass produced. they were custom built for your arcade.

>>11798501
>they weren't mass produced. they were custom built for your arcade.
You are partially correct and partially incorrect. There was a base design you could order as seen here >>11791218 . These ready made and could be shipped out quickly. But since you were paying so much money (around $300,000 to $400,000), Namco could customize the cabinet if you requested it. Then Namco would send a team out to your location to measure the area, and to discuss your needs and wants. They would customize the cabinet (within reason) to what your desires are. There were several variations of Ridge Racer Full Scalethat were made. Most have been destroyed or lost to time. But I am lucky to have seen a few of them.

I played the six player version 30 years ago when it was installed at my local arcade.

>>11798516
>$300,000 bucks
>price not including a $10 cooling fan that would have prevented the GPU from melting in 2 months of purchase

>>11798543
>$50,000 dollars worth of materials.
>Sold for $350,000 for each machine.

Namco made SO much profit from selling Ridge Racer Full Scale. It's shocking how profitable the "Golden Age of arcades" really were for game companies.

>>11798628
even just the regular Ridge Racer cabs I'm sure sold for a lot more than the actual cost of manufacturing was

>>11798501
The cool thing is Namco would offer the option to change the 3D model of the car to whatever car you wanted for your RRFS arcade can. Many went with the default 3D Ridge Racer car in game. Other arcade owners chose a Mazda Miata. And others supposedly went with different cool cars that look like Ferrari and Lamborghini. Unfortunately all the roms with the modified cars have been destroyed or lost. Only the modified Mazda Miata Rom was dumped for Mame. The rest are lost.

>>11797228
You're just a clueless, blabbering idiot.

>>11793247
I thought they were generally designed to be left on so they could actually save high scores and reduce bootup wear.

>>11798679
a lot of cabs had battery-backed SRAM to save hi scores though

>>11798679
Arcade cabinets have batteries that save the high scores whether you leave the game turned on or off. Only if the battery dies does this change. And even then, some arcade cabinets still have hard drives which can still save high scores even when the cabinet is turned off.

>>11798671
>You're just a clueless, blabbering idiot.
Lmao. Do you really think that Galaxian theme park rides were NOT exported to other countries? Do you honestly think that Namco would invest millions of dollars in a production line just to make 1 single Galaxian theme park machine? Of course not. You really are just stubborn and narrow minded.

>>11798792
So I was lied to by the Frogger episode of Seinfeld?

>>11798830
I mean that Frogger cabinet could just have a dead on-board save battery.

>>11798671
>>11797129
>If specific theme parks had the ride, those autists would know about it now.
I think you overestimate how much the older boomer generation didn't care about saving promotional or marketing materials. They would just throw them in the trash.

And the newer generation is too reliant on the internet. They aren't willing to do hard investigating like digging through mountains of old newspapers and magazines. They complain that Google should do all the work for them.

>>11798923
youngshits won't even try google. they just be help vampires on discord

>>11798830
>So I was lied to by the Frogger episode of Seinfeld?
They hooked up the cabinet to a battery in the episode.

>>11798830
>So I was lied to by the Frogger episode of Seinfeld?
Frogger doesn't even store initials so it hardly mattered if George had the high score, only he would know it was his.
>>11798792
Frogger ran on a board type that didn't have any kind of non-volatile storage. I want to say that nvram storage of scores came later, like 90s, when they started to move away from dip switches and into menu driven settings. They needed a place to store those settings, so might as well use some of it for scores. Before then it was all dip switches so you probably wouldn't be all that bothered to add a dedicated chip just to store a high score table between boots. But of course, every board is different, I'm not going to figure out which kind is more common. Wouldn't even know where to start.

>>11798628
When it's not a mass produced item that requires per install customisation and professional installation and maintenance, a 7:1 margin ain't a whole lot. People most certainly don't work for free, they are always the biggest expense in any business, and so the fewer cabs and the more people, the larger the margin has to be.
This tends to be what kills these big attractions. They cost so much to produce beyond the nominal materials costs that they have to charge the arcades a lot to make it worth their while. And this in turn means the arcade operators need to see a whole lot of usage of the machine to get to the break even point. And often times all these giant projectors, hydraulics and early 90s 3D boards suck so much power that $2 you put in to get 10 mins of play, after the government and the power company take their chunk, you only have a regular amount like from any ol' jamma to cover your business overheads. And so it doesn't take much cooling of interest before having that fancy full size car running its attract sequence is starting to generate negative profit.

>>11799872
You touched on a few things I agree with, but I have to add some more clarification.

>suck so much power that $2 you put in to get 10 mins of play, after the government and the power company take their chunk

Larger arcades actually get discounted commercial business rates from the electric company. So the electricity they use is less than a residential customer.

In addition if this were the 1990s, these arcade machines would be left turned on. So it doesn't matter if a person plays it or not. It uses the same amount of power. Arcade cabinets have what's called "attract mode" where it plays the game on the screen to draw in customers.

>They cost so much to produce beyond the nominal materials costs that they have to charge the arcades a lot to make it worth their while.

You are on the right track. The logic is there. But the truth is actually backwards. Arcade companies will actually make the big Deluxe arcade cabinet first. Then they will look at sales of the game. If it's popular enough, then the game company will consider making smaller arcade cabinets of the same game. So the default is big cabinet first. Then smaller cabinet a little later if it's popular enough.

That's what happened with games like Daytona USA. Deluxe cabinet came out first and Sega gradually released smaller cabinets to sell to arcades that couldn't fit the big Deluxe cabinet. However Daytona USA was so popular that Sega ended up making multiple versions of the Deluxe cabinet based on feed back from arcade owners.

>And so it doesn't take much cooling of interest before having that fancy full size car running its attract sequence is starting to generate negative profit.

These huge deluxe machines are often called "Showpiece / Centerpiece / Eye catching" machines. They are designed to be huge and bold to catch interest of customers walking by the arcade. Either to play the game or make people walk into the arcade to spend money. So it's a bonus either way.

>>11799850
>Frogger ran on a board type that didn't have any kind of non-volatile storage.
Pretty sure it does. When you unplug the cab, the high scores disappear.

In the episode they hooked up a car battery to the cabinet. So there has to be some truth to it.

>>11792472
There was one in the UK but the arcade it was in shut down a few years ago

>>11786803 (OP)
i went there at the beginning of the month and it was closed :(
try your luck with the summer hours, temper your expectations for fun world itself even though there's a lot of cool arcade games there, it's like a 90s fun house stuck in time with a lot of cool sports/shooting games if you dont care for ticket stuff
a surprising lack of fighting games there, but they had modded ddr that crashed when i picked a song

>>11801243
>a surprising lack of fighting games there,
I think you can partially blame Capcom. Their 1990s arcade boards self destruct after the on-board battery dies. A design feature to fight piracy. A fix was created several years ago, but so many boards have already been lost and I don't think mskt arcade owners want to deal with soldering and delicate time consuming fixes for such old 2D games.

No excuse for the lack of 3D games though. No Tekken, Virtua Fighter, or anything else.

>>11801282
Yes they didn't use mask ROMs, the program code was held in battery-backed SRAM and eventually when the battery died the code was lost and the cab didn't work anymore. This was a really poorly-thought out anti-piracy measure with the idea that if you unplugged the board from the battery you lose the code in it and can't use it.

>>11800646
The main thing that bothered me about that episode was the implication that the pizza place went decades without ever losing power. But it's a funny little show so really didn't care.

>>11786803 (OP)
Good know. But I'm honestly a little shocked that only one is left in the entire USA. I remember that these Galaxian3 machines used to be everywhere. I remember that nearly every Dave and Busters had them in the 90s. Hundreds of Galaxian3 machines. So how come more weren't preserved?

>>11802009
How do you preserve a machine the size of a room?

>>11802012
I mean don't they have huge Video Game Museums in many states ? I went to one that was the size of multiple huge warehouses in Texas.

>>11802037
Those exist NOW. They didn't exist when places were getting rid of their machines.

Also, those places tend to be very selective about what they put on the floor. Derby Owner's Club is a good example. The last few Dave and Busters that had it finally got rid of it a few years back, so now there isn't a single arcade in the country that wants it because it's so big. The last retro arcade that tried housing it got sick of kids leaving the cards laying around and sold it.

>>11802319
>Derby Owner's Club
I thought this was because the game uses printable paper cards, ans that Sega stopped making the cards and spare parts for the printer? Hard to play the game when the machine had no paper or working printer.

>>11802319
It's a worse situation for Derby owners club compared to Galaxian3. Derby owners club machines was scrapped due to cards no longer made. If someone sits down and tries to play the machine with no card…it just hangs and freezes. The DoC machine needs cards.

You can do some "fan mods" to get the machine to run without cards, but it wasn’t feasible for commercial arcades that need reliable machines. Not machines with janky mods.

Sigh. It's a great game. But The game lost its touch from the early 2000’s when it was mostly drinkers, smokers, and under the table betters playing it. It was such a unique era. I suspect Sega made the machine reliant the cards to function as a way to control the market. If they made the cards only optional, then no one would buy the cards and Sega wouldn't earn money.

>>11802556
Derby Owner's Club was so common that there are LOADS of cards for it still floating around. Hell, Initial D had so many cards that they only started drying up around 2015, and that game only had a fraction of the distribution of Derby Owner's Club.

>>11803707
Derby Owners Club died because Sega stopped supporting Naomi hardware around 2008. The games lasted a few more years afterwards but we're phased out in the 2010s. That means Sega would not send any spare parts and would not repair any damaged or burned out chips on the board.

People seem to forget that Derby Owners Club required TEN Seperate Arcade Boards running in sync to Function. 1 board for each player seat (there are 8 seats) and 2 boards for the main game being played on the huge monitor. That's 10 huge arcade boards all running at once....with a high chance of something going wrong when the game is so old. A 10 to 15 year old cabinet will run into issues. Older Naomi boards were prone to bad Ram, ram chips failing, cheap Sega capacitors leaking, and the Naomi PSU becoming failty. Now multiply that by 10 for a single machine. Thars why DoC was retired. Too much maintenance and Sega not caring anymore.

>>11790458
Arcade games always cost a ton of money because most of them are fairly low production runs, and because they're intended to be used for profit operators are willing to pay higher prices because they know they'll (hopefully) make their money back after a few months if not weeks. Even conversion kits for systems like the Neo Geo or CPS2 that were just cartridges and artwork cost several hundred dollars.

>>11802012
>How do you preserve a machine the size of a room?
I mean these arcade machines were inside Dave And Busters. They can be disassembled and reassembled. All you need is a large enough space. It's not that big a deal. Arcades should already be renting large spaces to begin with.

>>11804020
most also tended to use bleeding edge chip tech with no expenses spared. the typical arcade cab was a lot more advanced than contemporary home console/computer.

>>11786803 (OP)
Question:

If I wanted to buy one of these galaxian 3 machines, where would I find one? Money isn't an issue. I remember playing this a lot as a kid, and wouldn't mind owning one. I live about an hour away from the city and own a little bit of land. I could probably build a barn and build a small retro arcade.

>>11806073
you could set up a better and more immersive space shooter, in less space even

>>11786942
>Don't forget the Japanese seem to take some weird perverse pleasure in not helping other Galaxian3 collectors.
Japanese (and Asian) collectors in general get pleasure from knowing they are the only ones with something rarer than the others. It’s malicious autism via Asian genes if anything

>>11786830
its new hampshire. its as safe as it kind be

>>11806646
Leftists bus criminals in from other states to burn things down.

>>11806640
That's just a general human thing, look at people who collect cars or similarly to game preservation, film work prints.

>>11806658
No. It's amplified with Asians. I don't know if it's cultural, but they (Japanese collector fanbase) absolutely love refusing to help Westerner fans. There's so many stories of refusing to cooperate or even being hostile.

The situation is much worse on the emulation and rom side. Basically two groups. Westerners trying to get more roms for Mame VS hyper obsessive Japanese Game ROM hoarders. I won't go into detail in this thread about all the headaches dealing with Japanese Rom collection groups, but there's almost zero cooperation with Eastern and Western groups.

There's a lot of stories. But to summarize, Japan has thousands of arcade games that were only ever released in Japan during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. During the golden age of arcades, many companies (both large studios and small indie studios) would release hundreds of arcade games per year. Some were exported, but A LOT were Japan only releases. Companies did this because it was cheaper, or the company thought the games were culturally too related to Japan and would sell too poorly in the West, or even just the company couldn't afford localization fees to bring it to the West. Were talking games that basically only got a few commercials on Japanese TV or not even that. Maybe just a few ads in the local game magazine or newspaper. That's it.

There's no centralized database either like a Wikipedia to track all of unreleased Japa only titles. We don't know how much "we don't know". Just that there's thousands of Japanese only arcade titles. Games that got sequels we never heard of, or game franchises that never had a Western release. Many have been forgotten by time. And only a handful of game roms and game boards were saved by Japanese fans.

The Japanese collector fanbase gives off a LOT of hostility at the idea of the idea of sharing these unreleased Japanese only ROMS with the West, but they are perfectly happy to use Mame emulators. Very hypocritical if you ask me.

>>11806101
>you could set up a better and more immersive space shooter, in less space even
But I don't care about other shooters. I have no attachment Tomb Raider or Halo or whatever the latest shooter is out there. I grew up with Galaxian3

>>11806748
I've talked to the guy who writes emulators for Bemani games. He's worked closely enough with Japanese data trading circles to know what they have (they traded him a lot of western undumped bemani game versions in exchange for helping him get their networks working, which is why we have some of those dumps). They've apparently got an EXTREMELY comprehensive library of dumped Japanese arcade games spanning back to the 70s. They're just very picky about who they give access to.

>>11803861
It's actually just because there was a high demand for Net DIMMS and Derby Owner's Club was one of the biggest sources of the things. So the bulk of them were bought specifically to scrap and resell in parts.

>>11802556
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD_cq6I3OnY

>>11807297
So are we one security breach away from having a copy of it all or one earthquake away from humanity losing it all?

>>11806748
>No. It's amplified with Asians. I don't know if it's cultural, but they (Japanese collector fanbase) absolutely love refusing to help Westerner fans. There's so many stories of refusing to cooperate or even being hostile.

It's a byproduct of being trained to keep your society healthy and free of bad elements that are ultimately unknown to you, can't fault them for that.

>>11808220
Yes but it's ultimately self-defeating. The Japanese didn't create Mame or any famous emulators. They just collect boards and roms for the sake of collecting. So hoarding old arcade boards and roms is pointless without an end goal.

I could respect the Japanese collectors a lot more if they made their own competing emulators. Something that is competitive against Mame or even better than Mame. But they have nothing to show for all their efforts. So all their rare or hidden arcade boards just there and will eventually turn to dust.

The worst part is that barcades aren't that popular in Japan. Neither are Freeplay arcades and they have very few arcade museums in Japan. Just hansful

Why do I mention this? Well without any of the things I mentioned, there's very little incentive to save old arcade cabinets. America finds uses for their old cabinets by opening up barcades, freeplay retro arcades, and arcade museums. Many in each state. Meanwhile Japan is destroying and abandoning a lot of their old candy cabinets and their vintage arcade machines at an alarming rate. These are cabinets from golden age of gaming. But the attitude I've seen from Japanese owners is very alarming. Their attitude is to scrap them or leave the machines outside to eventually rust away. There isn't a lot of "sentimentality" in Japanese arcade culture compared to the West.

Many businesses want to clear out their old machines to make room for new stuff. I've seen many absolutely heart breaking photos of some very rare machines that were abandoned and ruined by the outdoor elements.

>>11808374
Stick to your tribe.

>>11808374
>I've seen many absolutely heart breaking photos of some very rare machines that were abandoned and ruined by the outdoor elements.
That's entirely on you, I think pictures like that are cool and beautiful.
Also ultimately you're only really saying that you're the whitest guy imaginable who just can't help but stick your nose into other people's business and scream and holler about what they should be doing better.
Pretty much the only thing I do that's similar is about the Fist of the North Star movie, but that was genuine censorship and the only people who agree with it were the same Japanese soccer moms who censored it to begin with.

>>11808379
Tribes don't exist. Nintendo, Sega, Sony, etc are worldwide companies. So we all have a right to complain

>>11807297
>>11806748
Name 5 of these games.

>>11809674
Lost cause.

>>11810318
We don't know what we don't know. The Japanese collector community is the opposite of Western Collectors. They don't show off their treasure boards. They collect in secret and only allow a few trusted people to look at it. If you really want to know, then go talk to the Bemani guy. He traded his skills to rebuild game servers, after Sega and Konami shut down the official servers, in exchange for game roms. He was able to get glance at some of it. IIRC he said there were thousands of Japan only games going back to the 1970s. Anyway, he traded his skills for some unreleased rhythm game ROMS.

>>11810318
He wouldn't say. The only specific thing I ever remember him confirming is after the Chinese crack for Hatsune Miku Project Diva came out, he mentioned that Japan has had a working network emulator for it since the early 2010s.

So it's not just data, but also emulation for the data they don't share.

>>11786840
When I was a kid I got free pizza from that Pizza Hut because they gave a coupon at school if you did a book report does anyone else remember that
Also like 10 years ago I saw a car flip over on this road

>>11786803 (OP)
>MAME

>>11786830
i wish i could live in as much fear as the average american lol, life must be so exciting when you believe any trip outside your house is a potentially deadly situation

>>11811269
You've never Urban youths destroying things. They took baseball bat's in my city, broke in and vandalized a local arcade. Urban youths are dangerous.

>>11811242
did you end up killing an overly talkative grandmother with 3 shots to the chest?

>>11811269
You say that until it comes to your area.

>>11811242
I actually did stop in that Pizza Hut after the arcade when I visited, because I just needed some quick food to take back to the hotel. Was actually surprised that it still looks so much like a classic Pizza Hut inside.

>>11811617
>Was actually surprised that it still looks so much like a classic Pizza Hut inside.
Must be a franchise Pizza Hut. Not a corporate owned Pizza Hunt. It costs money to renovate and corporate doesn't reimburse franchise owners. So might as well leave it as long as it works.

>>11811242
Did the same thing when I was a kid and that was in like 2014 so they may actually still be doing it.
>>11811269
The average panzified bible belt, white and white collar American to be specific.
I'm a poor guy from Flint and love it here despite being as close to real life GTA as you can get (outside of Detroit which is even closer)
>>11811278
>>11811469
Point proven.

>>11811054
>IIRC he said there were thousands of Japan only games going back to the 197
I don't believe they are anything other than massive amounts of slightly different bootlegs of games which have existing dumps.
We have resources like Game Machine magazine to see what games were available at any given time period.

>>11811843
When it comes to console games you are correct. Many copies were printed, and they eventually got dumped in some form.

But arcade games are different. They used expensive niche hardware that customers didn't have access to. Only arcade owners and a handful of collectors had the games.
So there are many games that simply never left the country of Japan.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Japan was pumping out hundreds (if not low thousands) of arcade games every single year. That's how crazy the 2D arcade era was.

There is no master list of released games during this era. Sometimes a game's only existed might be a single piece of artwork that was saved from the early 80s. Or a random photo of someone playing it.

>>11811269
it can feel that way for anyone fem-presenting.
lots of creeps out at night

>>11811947
>They used expensive niche hardware that customers didn't have access to.
For late 70s and early 80s games that isn't really true. There just was not that many different chips on the market for them to pick from, and they didn't develop any of it in-house.
That's why so many games ran on the Z80.

>>11811625
They're now building new "old" Pizza Huts. They don't completely match the old design but get reasonably close.
>>11811947
Not saying your wrong because I have zero personal knowledge about Japan's video game market in the 70s and 80 but could some of those have simply been variations of existing games? Not just bootlegs but also authorized alterations for a specific chain of arcades or restaurants (did they even place arcade machines in restaurants?). Instead of Space Invaders, Noodle Invaders for a noodle places. That kind of thing.

Japs aren't communists lol

>>11812418
For CPUs, yes. It was much cheaper to use off the shelf parts because there were only a few 8 and 16bit cpus and they were all on a race to the bottom to secure market share. When you look into the history of the Z80 and 6502 it's basically "let's put motorolla's 6809 in the dirt" and they would keep dropping the price year on year for anyone who turned up willing to buy a bunch at a time.
But the graphics and sound chips tended not to be off the shelf. This was back when generic graphics and sound wasn't really a thing. You could get yourself cheap terminal chips that just did monochrome text, and you could get beepers, but if you wanted sprites and multi-color tiles you pretty much had to make it yourself. Sound was slightly different in that you could raid the bottom end of keyboards, but generally that was still too expensive until Yamaha started making cost reduced parts for games.
Also, you have to realise that many of these arcade boards and the games that ran on them had an electrical engineer involved in the process. Today there's so much separation it's hard to imagine, but back then whether you programmed a blitter routine in z80 assembly or you taped out a circuit that did the same thing was pretty much the same deal. Might as well make your own custom hardware since that's equally as simple as optimising a software approach on a bitmap dispaly.

>>11813094
So you're referring to something like the sound hardware on Donkey Kong boards?

>>11808220

True but they could be more open where it benefits them and others.

>>11812449
>They're now building new "old" Pizza Huts. They don't completely match the old design but get reasonably close.
Good! Why change a classic? They

Places like. McDonalds used to be so cool. They had ballpits and arcade cabinets. Even Neo Geo. Machines and video game kiosks.

Now McDonalds looks bland, too sleek, and forgettable. Like an office building.

>>11814413
This makes miss old school McDonalds so much.

>>11814413
>. Even Neo Geo. Machines and video game kiosks.
With a Japanese marquee...

>>11815442
The marquee has empty game slots for pictures that can be changed

>>11786803 (OP)

I miss when Namco used to be ambitious.

>>11816108
Once the MBAbros take over, companies lose their passion for their product. It's great for the profits and stock prices, at least in the short term, but horrible for culture.