texas has it and what about other arcade buyer who my imported machines. I'm sure little tokyo will have soon one. I went there and they had tekken 5. I also played Lupin the 3rd shooter game with 2 guncon at the same time. but there are some aszhole there who put there coins on the machine who want to play next while im waiting for my turn behind someone to play next. He dressed as lame emo kid, trust me he wore leather pants and other dumb stuff.

Sad but not suprising. The US arcade scene is basically dead.

@dexterr: eedit, buyers who buy imported machines.

Hard to be surprised, but if that estimate of it coming home "November at the earliest" is true, it sucks eighty dog dicks.

Despite how cool I think arcade games are, who in their right mind would pay $1 per game (or $2 here in Canada)? You can rent a game for a week for the price of a few rounds at the arcade.

Oh well, I prefer using the D-pad to joystick anyway. Don't hit me D:
I only go to the arcade to play Silent Scope and get asked to leave when I shout, swear and drool too much. Some people.

so Tekken 6 wont be here officially, what a shame.
anyway i'll be playing it on my ps3 this fall. or at least thats what i hope.

@Putter5: But then the only people you can show off to is your friends and your family! You gotta be awesome at the arcade so strangers tape you, put it on youtube with the title "THIS GUY PWNS AT DDR!- I mean, TEKKEN 6!" Then random people clap and high five you cause you know your way around the dance pad- I mean, arcade stick.

Hmm... Too bad the console killed the arcade in the US. Over here, its pouring with Tekken 6 machines that you get sick and tired of hearing some people shout in the crowd how good they are and how complicated the new bounce comobos are...

Well, at least there's one reason to go to Houston.

Yeah, my parents live there.

theres a tekken 6? i didnt get that memo

i just watched a gamplay video on youtube. i dont think anyones missing much. the graphics are much different, and it still plays like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5......

fuck! i meant arent much differnt. edit button kotaku, PLZ

I gotta say, I've never been a big fan of Tekken or Virtua Fighter.

I think there should be more Rival Schools, though.

it's very sad how people are not into arcades anymore. You can thank xbox live and the lazy couch-potatoes for that.

There would have to be American arcades for these machines to not come to.

@awesomerobot: There would have to be American arcades for these machines to not come to.

So sad, but true. There is a rather poor arcade about a half mile from work. I used to go there a lot but lately it's just stunk. Once they got rid of their Marvel vs. Capcom 2 machine, well I lost interest.

The best arcade I ever went to was back in the Saratoga Mall in Wilton NY which closed around 10 years ago. It was there I first played Super Pac-Man, Defender and my only experience with a real original Space Invaders machine. I miss that place.

The death of the arcade is sad. Time for us to learn woodworking and build our own cabinets, I suppose.

"Right now, the arcade version of Tekken 6 loads of places, like NOT AMERICA and NOT AMERICA."

I feel like there's something missing here.

shit i get happy when i find Warzaid in an arcade around here (which i can only think of one actual arcade unless i go down to the shore) i didnt expect to see Tekken 6.

Oh thank you god. Keep your Tekken, crappy fighter. I'm really going to miss it....NOT.

@aphexacid: No edit, just proofread before posting, perhaps, hmm? :P

What about these imported arcade machines? Do you think Namco will get wind of them and start Tekken them away from whichever arcades they're already in?

...aaaaand, end scene.

I RTFA and all, but couldn't find the address of the Toronto arcade. Someone help?

I am pretty sure chinatown fair in nyc will get they always have japanese games there....even though it smells like musty old man there....

How funny that the game is from Namco, being as I blame them in part for Arcade's demise (Well, Namco Cybertainment, anyway...)

Having worked in a reasonably distant past as an Arcade Attendant for Aladdin's Castle, I remembered working around a crazy manager that had one eye looking one way, while another looking towards another, and "fixing" machines by banging a monkey wrench on the PCBs(!). Other attendants would prey on some of the girls that were on average five years younger, and the District and General Managers would have absolutely no clue as to what gamers wanted. (e.g; Pinballs suck... Dance Dance Revolution would never catch on, gamers don't want to move around too much on an arcade machine... Put in a bunch of 16 bit and ticket redemption games, the kids don't care!)

The Namco Cybertainment execs that would visit the location I used to work at a decade ago (Parmatown -- Parma, Ohio) would refuse to take feedback, and would walk around with a pompous attitude, thinking that because they were in their positions that they were the "know all" source of what gamers want.

What they forgot, however, is what made arcades fun. Instead of remembering that games should either be tried and true or cutting-edge, they went with bulk games that were mediocre at best, and often not worth a token, let alone the three or four that they practically demanded.

Add the stale atmosphere (Anyone who remembers the 80s knew that some arcades showed MTV and NOT "Channel M"), the lack of events (Arcade tournaments weren't the only things done in the late 80s, in comparison to today's occasional tournament here and there.), numerous broken machines that seemingly never had ordered parts or proper repair, the failure to come up with a fair and reasonable pricing structure for the games offered, and the failure to innovate the arcade experience to adapt with the times would result in an often undesirable taste in the arcade affectionado's mouth. The arcade experience in most places as of late just doesn't provide the bang for the buck, even if our dollar is worth yesterday's quarter these days.

Sure there are other arcades here and there, but I choose to target Namco Cybertainment not just from my experiences from working there in the past, but also from noting that they were one of the larger arcade companies out there that muscled alot of "mom and pop" out of business. After they drove them out, the lack of competition made the arcade scene stagnant.

Hopefully, places like GameWorks and Dave and Busters will help keep the scene alive in some way, shape or form, but the outlook is not promising, when you have some games costing roughly two-plus dollars a pop.

Too bad most kids will never know the magic that some of us knew when we entered an arcade with four quarters, and a seemingly endless supply of cutting edge and innovative arcade and pinball games that would keep you mesmerized for a couple of hours with original gameplay and then-intricate strategy.

Ohh we've got an arcade division. Unless Ashcraft knows something I don't. Should I be expecting a call this morning telling me not to go to work. Ohh please tell me it's true!

@Soldier_CLE: What's amusing is most of the arcades in NCI are now unmanned. So the broken games factor is multiplied exponentially. NCI basically pulls it revenue out of theaters and Walmarts instead of the arcade scene. There's a store that I visit to help fix the games and the manager does basically the same thing, except with more hair pulling and less wandering eye. It's hard to take pride in a company when they just spit in gamers' eyes. The arcades are based around bulk rather than quality. Perhaps someone will come around and change that, but not likely. Eventually everything will convert into cybercafes where you pay to play on consoles or PC's.

@Soldier_CLE: Little hope. Both the Gameworks and D&B around my parts barely update the arcades. Half the arcades available are selections from a decade ago that no one plays.

Part of the failures can probably be attributed to the drive for a more casual market withn the arcade inustry. Around the late 90s-early 00s, most stables were filled with 10k dollar units with light gun shooters and driving games that appealed mostly to the occasional visitors. Thereby, neglecting the diehards and merely appeasing the casuals, which equals bad investments.

The hope right now is that a few Mom & Pop shops are doing ok, and quite a few are springing up every so often and cater to their patrons. As for kids not growing up with arcades, some still although not quite as money, but how many of us can say we grew up with 10cent cokes and quarter hamburgers.

I call BS on this. Most arcades in America are own or sub-own by Namco. I'm thinking that high volume arcades will be getting Tekken 6.

@Soldier_CLE

I used to work at Cyberstation a while ago. The lower management has no clue but I don't think the company can be held accountable for retarded street crews - not entirely anyway.

In my experience, as much as it sucked, the ticket games paid the bills while Tekken, Soul Callibur, DDR, and King of Fighters would be on display for the real gamers. Also, a lot of racing games would make a good ammount of money.

Even so, you could tell arcades were done when the ticket games started to outsell racing games and when even the hardest of hardcore fighting fans would bitch about a game costing 3 tokens. Over in Japan, games average ~$2/play and people pay it, knowing that it's just the price of admission. I guess they foresaw the demise and accepted higher fees whereas in the US, we just saw higher prices and walked away.

Well after doing some research appearantly the machine costs $32,000, so its not surprising that a company decided to keep the machine away from a country that is is ever more console-oriented. This will be a day 1 pick up for ps3 though

if arcade machines were still 25c to play, and they threw in some of my fav old time machines like golden axe, some SF2, those awesome SNK/Neogeo machines, and some Off-Road... I'd quit my job and live there. Probably get divorced... But I'm not shelling out 1 buck to play ridge racer!

Other than boardwalks at beach towns I don't think I've seen an arcade in America in the last 3 or 4 years. I know about that BARCADE in Brooklyn, but haven't actually gone. Does it really count if you have to be 21+ to go? I mean, I could go, but a real arcade should be a place for kids to go, too, in my opinion. If kids can't go, it's not really an arcade, it's something else. Like a bar with a nice collection of arcade games, for instance. But not an arcade. Oh, Dave & Busters or whatever those places are called... they sort of have arcades inside of them. I wish standalone arcades where kids & adults conglomerate were as common now as they were in the 80s/early-90s. Those place were fun. And I want to play Tekken 6.

When do we ever get good arcade games? I think Missouri got 1 or 2 Beatmania IIDX machines. Doubt we'll ever see Ju Beat. Or do these cabinets only end up Cali, Florida, and NY?

So its coming to Canada but not USA??? Man I love my Country!!!!!!

GODDAMMIT first they get free health care and now this alright Canada this means WAR!!!!!!!!!

I'm sure there will be Tekken 6 in California, there's a ton of arcades here that still import arcade games.

[/SUICIDE]

Fine... they should be able to bring it out for my console that much quicker then.

arcades are not worth it anymore. a dollar a game doesnt pay. its not the same and it will never be again. i miss those old days *sniffle*

@PHILOSOPHER541: You're going to the wrong arcades, then. In So Cal at least, if you go to an arcade known for fighting games, it's still 25 cents a play.

There are two good arcades in Houston that I know of:
[www.mashharder.com] (the actual website is down) Planet Zero, the one mentioned here. They import a lot of arcades, and they host Anime Matsuri, which I believe was pretty popular down here. I've only been there once, and I was broke, but I've wanted to go back. It's a cool place for the pretty hardcore, imo.
[www.joystixamusements.com] The other place would be Joystix arcade, which is really more of a dealer and located near Minute Maid park. I went to a private party hosted there, but they are apparently open on Friday nights to the public at 15 bucks a head and free play. This arcade is great because it is a throwback to the old days. They focus mainly on pinball machines, and have a lot of great old school stuff. They also had a Pump it Up arcade, which I have never seen before down here.

As mentioned, they have the game here in vancouver at the Metrotown mall. Great Arcade, modeled after Japanese style arcades. They have all the new Sega games (House of the Dead 4, After Burner Climax), and even Mario Kart GP2 as well.

But I wouldn't bother making the trip unless you are truly hardcore about the game. I haven't played it yet, but visually, it looks like a slight update from Tekken 5 (Wasn't even on an HD screen), and the fighting looks, to me eyes at least to be very similar to Tekken 5.

If you come, come to play the Sega games as well, prepare for slight disappointment, or just not worry about it and appreciate the wealth of beautiful women and scenery up here :)

erm, not all Friday nights, only the first and last of every month. My bad.

I've been tracking Tekken 6's progress for a while now and I'm not too enthusiastic about how it looks right now. Look up Tekken 6 combo videos on youtube and you'll see that there's a lot of cheap damage in the upcoming sequel. The worst of it is the wall damage, which is compounded by the fact that you can keep bouncing your opponent off the ground and back into the wall for more wall damage and there's nothing they can do about it. There's also the Bound system, where, when you do a move that has bound properties, your opponent can't do anything for a brief period while they're on the ground. The Rage system multiplies the damage on every attack you dish out, though this is only if your health is low. Still, there are a lot of death combos off of rage. Juggling is still an issue in Tekken 6, as well. In the Tekken series, juggling your opponet will actually keep them from dropping to the ground. Some characters, it takes some skill to juggle with, others have it easy. I'd prefer if juggles were like VF or DOA where the opponent keeps dropping, adding a higher level of skill to juggles. I'm still going to play Tekken 6 when it comes out on PS3, but only at my friend's house. I really don't think it's going to be as innovative as they've claimed. The saving grace might be that it supports updates, so the can fix anything about the games that might be broken. We'll see.

I remember when they had a namco arcade at the great mall at milpitas,ca. They used to have a lot of the newer stuff at the time. They even hosted the tekken 4 tourny there. Eventually though they got rid of cause people stopped coming. D&B ( Dave and Busters) now has taken over its place. However d&b is big on a lot of casuals, mind you better than the typical arcade now. There are a few golflands that buy the newest cabinets, but they cater a lot of music games and such. It was the first time I saw para para paradise, so I knew they imported a lot. They prolly would have tekken 6 right now, but of course I haven't been there in a long time.

Consoles are cheap enough now to merit owning one of those before you spend twenty bucks a day in an arcade. American arcades would be better if we got the sit down cabinets like the Japanese do, that way you're more prone to sticking around and dropping in quarters my back starts to kill me after awhile.

I was going to say...there AREN'T any arcades left anymore. No wonder Namco doesn't have a US arcade division...

Shame, I just spent my birthday at Gameworks here in the Dallas area last month with some friends. Fun was had by all and one of my friends who is not a big gamer but loves Tekken; played Tekken 5 for the first time and with in the next week proceeded to finally get herself a PS2 and a stack of games including all the past Tekkens. So by all accounts having Tekken 5 there benefited Namco as it brought in money from a consumer who had been out of the gaming scene. Bring it to the states Namco, you wont be sorry!