Your oppinion on the current Arcade Industry?

Hello everyone, and thanks for checking this out.
Im representing my Uncle's company of
Ferris Music Service..of maine to recieve some input on the state of the arcade buisness today. Here in maine, I dont see a vast number of arcades, our company mostly deals with bars, small places, and a couple of arcades, one being my uncles own. Yada Yada, its a good buisness with a steady income. But as more and more companies are stearing clear of arcade development and now the home systems are growing to be just as powerfull, or even more than the high end game pcb, what lies ahead for the arcade world?

I live in Maryland and there are not many arcades located where I live in fact only 1.

Our arcade is mostly ticket paying basketball and skeeball with maybe 4 or 5 actual games and Raiden Fighters is the only one I play.

I remember when I was a kid and the arcade that is in my mall would get new games almost weekly and it was a busy place all the time, but those days are gone. Unfortunately here in the US the arcade business is dieing, which is sad. I'll miss the days of playing Street Fighter 2 and Samurai Showdown with friends and people I don't even know.

But I do believe it's slowly going out although I wish something would kick it back into high gear again.

The games that do well in the arcades nowadays are the ones that are hard to imitate at home:

DDR
ParaPara
Bemani games
Initial D
Silent Scope

Etc.

Basically any game that has peripherals that can't be ported to home systems...

Those and some of the newest fighters , but only for a couple of weeks on release ( i.e. Soul Calibur II is already dead )

arcades = amusement parks

and I like 'em, but

arcade videogaming is dead

or shit

you choose.

How come no one has come up with online arcade games? Wouldn't it be cool to have arcades that were online internationally. Just think, you play play against some hardcore gamers in Japan. DDR online...hmmm...scary...

up until about 5 years ago arcades were great....but now they barely have any real games at all...

Right. Arcades have turned to shit... at least from my geographic stand point. I used to live in arcades in middle/early high school. Now all arcades have to offer are games you either sit or stand in/on.

Damn shame. I can't find a good shmup or fighting game cab around here to save my life. Good thing I own a Neo.

My local "cade" recently got a badass game called Ballistics where you actually lay down to play its a ultra fast tunnel racing game .

The Arcade business is a tough business... really tough. People beat the shit out of your games. Smash $150 guns because they missed a target. The only thing that is a true Cash Cow is the Megatouches.

Wait till you hear the news that Namco's about to lay out. Then tell me arcades are not dead.

SUX

Way too many simulations, and by that I mean racing games, dancing games, light gun games, etc... when I play a game, I don't want it to be a shadow of something that I could go do elsewhere. I want to see some weird, interesting stuff, like fireballs, wizards, dragons, etc.. As someone else said, today's arcades are like minuature amusement parks.