Lobbying an arcade to install a SF4 cab.

lazlo

Chunkis post the other day about the arcade scene here in Ireland got me thinking that it really shouldn't be that hard to convince an arcade(or even a retailer who wants a more unusual 'drawing card') to get a cab put in place. They only need convincing that it will be worth its floorspace in revenue. I'd be willing to put some time in making calls and pitching the idea but I'd need to have a rough idea of a few things beforehand.

Just how big is the SF4 community in the Dublin area?
How often would the average player avail avail of it?
How much would people be willing to pay per game?

Red350

I really don't see the point in trying for a SF4 cabinet at this stage.
Unless capcom make a complete mess out of super, are we really going to be playing the original anymore?

FoamyMushroom

lazlo wrote: »

Just how big is the SF4 community in the Dublin area?
How often would the average player avail of it?
How much would people be willing to pay per game?

1)Pretty dam big a theres new people always showing up at the tourneys

2)I'd be playing it most days im free which is nearly every week

3) euro a game like the Tekken machines

lazlo

Well even for SSIV Turbo. I imagine that any successful venture to get a cab installed would take a few months at any rate by which time SSIV will be out. Taking this into consideration the current pool of users are actually best to gather info from as it is they who are most likely to be diehards of the sequel too.

lazlo

has anyone kept data of attendance at the boards events so far?

I've sent an email off to capcom europe requesting some quotations as well as T&Cs

FoamyMushroom

lazlo wrote: »

has anyone kept data of attendance at the boards events so far?

Each event the boards have had theres a thread for it, and on the first page and first post there's always a list of attendance's, all the people in the list go most of the time, and its a fair few that do sign up..

Plus you will prob get a quote by the end of the week off capcom

Cunny-Funt

There was a guy on here who seemed to be interested in setting up his own arcade at one stage.

Anyway the issue with SSF4 is there's currently not going to be an arcade version of it. That will hopefully change but not till the console release is out tbh.

Would be sweet though.

K.O.Kiki

Things you need for a SFIV setup:

• Either
  • 1 cabinet with a 2-player panel
    OR
  • 2 cabinets with 1-player panels, plus a Link kit
• Taito-X2 motherboard.
• Street Fighter IV software

There's some stuff about needing cabs that can interface with the X2 board, ensuring that they can run at 230V, how to do linking, etc.
Haven't fully figured it out yet.

Anyway: cabs can go from $600 all the way to $3000+ (plus shipping); SFIV kits I've seen online cost about $2800, though the X2 is like a PC - you can run any X2 game on it once you have the machine, so getting an upgrade to Super would be easy.

lazlo

cheers man. I know that Capcom Japan have a minimum order size of 4 machines. I'll let you know what they say in response to my mail

Cunny-Funt

If someone could just make a cab and slap a decent PC into it, we'd be sorted.

K.O.Kiki

lazlo wrote:

cheers man. I know that Capcom Japan have a minimum order size of 4 machines. I'll let you know what they say in response to my mail

I saw that too, though I'm sure it'd be possible to get around that with resellers.
Could also mean some KOF XII & BlazBlue action...

Cunny-Funt wrote:

If someone could just make a cab and slap a decent PC into it, we'd be sorted.

Nah, Japanese/Korean cabs are nicer than some old-school MDF joke.
Easier to get & maintain, too!

FoamyMushroom

Actually Ive seen a cab made with a ps3 or a pc just thrown in, it had MvC n everything on it so the user could simply switch games n all, I dont think that'd be hard to make... a simple cap made from wood, get a ps3 or whatever get a decent looking screen, get big pc speakers, two aracade sticks, and well pretty much sorted...

Cunny-Funt

Check this out, guy who made his own arcade in his garage, sooo badass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XDzO3nHS4c

K.O.Kiki

Keystone II, I've only heard it once before.
AFAIK it's invite only, and they only accept beer, pizza and/or cigarettes! :pac:

chunkis

When i came to dublin on saturday the first thing i did was go into dr q`s and get the owners telephone number, i will give him a call this week and see what he says about sf4.

Also capcom europe are a bit ****e, but if you do want to speak to them regarding anything to do with sf4 email Anil.Das-Gupta@capcomeuro.com, he is a close friend of mine and deals with all things regarding sf4.

Cunny-Funt

wtf , it seems we've our very own s-kill now with chunkis here Btw m8 what did you think of the casuals anyway, I presume it wasnt much compared to what you are used to since few were there? (including me)

chunkis

The scene in dublin isn`t too different from the scene in london, the biggest difference is that london has an arcade and because of the arcade there are many players. The scene grows in london slowly but steadily because of the arcade. Its not essential that dublin has an arcade machine because the scene here is growing too, but it would bring new players into the scene and keep the current players at least the ones in the dublin area more active, because instead of meeting up once a week on a saturday they would be free to meet up anyday of the week for as little or as long as they like.

I enjoyed the casuals a lot and there was more than enough players there, sometimes if there is too many players you don`t get to play as much, but there was a nice number of people there and if everybody keeps meeting up once a week the level of play will rise and hopefully more people will turn up.

In regards to the seth comment, ive actually worked with him before, he is a super guy and gave me some financial backing to run a tournament in london 2 years ago called battle of destiny, where we flew all of the winners out to evolution, ryan hart placed 3rd in the tekken tournament, but because the 1st and 2nd place could not attend evo, dispite it being a free holiday ryan took the ticket and ended up winning tekken 5 at Evo. if the scene keeps growing here i don`t see why we couldnt run something similar in association with evolution, perhaps a qualifier or a one off event where we send the winner to Evo.

Xluna

Red350 wrote: »

I really don't see the point in trying for a SF4 cabinet at this stage.
Unless capcom make a complete mess out of super, are we really going to be playing the original anymore?

And considering all the hard core and casual SF players can own SSFIV for forty Euro in a couple of months on 360/PS3 can it make financial sense for anyone to invest in a cabinet? If it were still the Celtic tiger era you could convince Dr Quigley to import Chunners herself ( I wonder how much she would cost for a game:D) but times are hard. People are planing to trade in their Fifa09s and Dead or Alive Extreme for the princely sum of 50 cents each at Game shops and selling their grannys special medicine to scangers to afford the console version of SSFIV......times are hard.:pac:

homemadextc

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=203721&page=15
now if a group of people all put in the time an basement/garage arcade would be truly simple , five people make cabinets thats five cabinets link them up .

The problem would be finance to begin with although the cabinet itself wouldnt cost much the arcade sticks would [i suppose they could be built from scratch to save some dough], then theres the consoles and screens for 5 or so cabinets ? hmmmm.......and storage?

But these problems solve themselves really like that arcade owner you know instead of paying the crazy price of ???? [is it 20 grand for a set of four] you could build the cabinets allow him to keep them in his arcade for suppling the screens and consoles obviously you would need some sort of buisness plan to offer him

like for example instead of coins you could book the machine for a period of time the majority of the revenue if not all would go to the arcade owner until the screen/consoles were payed of then after the cabinets funds would be devided perhaps not equally but would be a source of income for whoever took on this job

man thats a crazy thought/rant

lazlo

Still no word back from Capcom. I do like homemadextc's idea though

ayjayirl

Hey guys, I know the son of the owner of Barneys arcade.... I can ask him about it. Personally, being a pad player, I am not too keen on it but am just one. I will contact him and ask him about it.

Placebo

Reality perception here lads. Lets say for instance Dr Quirkys do have 2 x SF4 cabs, who here realistically would go play there. Arcades went out of fashion because there wasnt many arcade specific releases, better or equivalent games were available at the comfort of your home.
Compare even XGC to the arcade, the seating and price arrangement 5 euros XGC = 2+ hours of gaming - 5 euros arcade = 5 rounds/games, it suits way better than the arcade. We all have this dream of ireland morphing into something like japan where you could walk into an arcade and find this anime looking character smoking a cigar double perfecting everything, not happening.
Just sayin is all.


Now if you had it in your room or something, thats a different story. OMG etc

K.O.Kiki

ayjayirl wrote: »

Hey guys, I know the son of the owner of Barneys arcade.... I can ask him about it. Personally, being a pad player, I am not too keen on it but am just one. I will contact him and ask him about it.

Ask him if they have any pads, boards, etc. they're willing to let go so.

@homemadeextc: It's a nice idea, but what you're not seeing is the amount of work needed to BUILD those cabinets -- I can tell you that, as nice as my shed is, there is no way in hell I could build even ONE due to space constraints.

Also, does anyone even have a basement?

K.O.Kiki

Placebo wrote: »

Reality perception here lads. Lets say for instance Dr Quirkys do have 2 x SF4 cabs, who here realistically would go play there. Arcades went out of fashion because there wasnt many arcade specific releases, better or equivalent games were available at the comfort of your home.
Compare even XGC to the arcade, the seating and price arrangement 5 euros XGC = 2+ hours of gaming - 5 euros arcade = 5 rounds/games, it suits way better than the arcade. We all have this dream of ireland morphing into something like japan where you could walk into an arcade and find this anime looking character smoking a cigar double perfecting everything, not happening.
Just sayin is all.

I disagree completely -- the arcade is a place of EXPERIENCES you cannot get at home (noise being primary). And you don't see other countries' arcade gamers complain about price, because it's STILL cheaper than buying a console, game, controller & TV setup. And it's NOT AT HOME, which is the big decider.

Yes, any arcade that springs up here isn't going to be "as big" as in Japan, but it's not like every arcade over THERE is a huge one either!

And I tell you one more thing: if you have a good game, with a highscore list, there is BOUND to be 2-3 guys who want to be at the top of that list, guaranteed. It's like instinct.

Placebo

other countries give you a card with number of credits that you can use on the machine, its not one/two euro a go. Of course the experience would be amazing but with the amount of cabs we can/could get and the current scene, it will fall short.
I grew up going to arcades in pakistan, i visited back earlier and the arcades were in ruins with still the old games.

Shotopunx

Tekken 6 is pretty successful in Quirky's. I think SFIV would do well enough too.

K.O.Kiki

They don't seem to maintain their cabs though; and where's that damn BR upgrade?

Ry

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

They don't seem to maintain their cabs though; and where's that damn BR upgrade?

Ask if you can do it for a fee :P

Owwmykneecap

With Super coming out, becoming the tourny defacto and people really looking to main the new characters unlike the home (champion) edition, the negatives really weighheavy on this.

If capcom get off their arse and issue an upgrade there would be a point.

Leprekaun

FoamyMushroom wrote: »

1)Pretty dam big a theres new people always showing up at the tourneys

2)I'd be playing it most days im free which is nearly every week

3) euro a game like the Tekken machines

FoamyMushroom wrote: »

1)Pretty dam big a theres new people always showing up at the tourneys

2)I'd be playing it most days im free which is nearly every week

3) euro a game like the Tekken machines

A euro a game!?

20c man!

Something that got me thinking about the whole getting an cabinet idea is about the number of players. Sure, there are the SFII veterans of yesteryear but they moved on which I think is why the arcade scene died out. The reasoning is because there aren't enough players anymore (or enough to generate reasonable interest to follow stick with it). I think one of the main things about the arcades was also that the machines were so much more powerful than the PCs or consoles in those days (e.g.: Sega Rally, Killer Instinct 2) of their time but its flipped the other way round now. I think we're better off just embracing the console side and besides, if you had an arcade, you'd mostly only get stick users where the pad users wouldn't be too enthusiastic but at least with consoles, both groups would be there.

There is definitely a nice nostalgic atmosphere to arcades but considering the difference in cost and the availability of arcade sticks for consoles, I don't really see a problem with going for consoles. About meeting up on a regular basis, I think for those that can should just get down to XGC whenever they can. In QUB, I read that they meet up at least twice a week. So maybe a general arrangement could be made for casuals (Wednesday and Saturday). It might be good to consider hosting more lan parties as well which could replicate some of the atmosphere associated with the arcade scene. I'd be willing to host lan parties (in Donegal ofcourse :pac:) but maybe if a group of 3 or 4 people around the country could be assigned with hosting lan parties in their county. We could even have our very own All-Ireland final :P (Any Kerry players are banned from taking part though :pac:). I really think it could work out very well. If 6-8 lan parties could be hosted around the year, it would be great. There just needs some joint enthusiasm and we could really make something proper out of it.

Cunny-Funt

I think building our own arcade is a great idea , each building a machine and putting them together, I could easily make one myself :cool: