Namco Bandai seems to have come up with a solution to their problem of (possibly) Wii-fueled arcade downturn: involving the Wii in the arcade. According to a very sad Asahi Shimbun report about closing arcades, Namco is now planning games that will allow data to be shared between the cabinet and the Wii -- we assume by Wii Remote data transfer.Home/arcade integration from Namco is not terribly surprising, since Tekken 5 actually has PlayStation 2 controller ports on the cabinet. No, the really interesting thing about this story is trying to figure out what Namco Bandai is going to design for play on both the Wii and in the arcade.
The news article is pretty interesting in other ways, as well: it goes into possible reasons for arcade business slowdown other than the Wii ... like the economy.
[Via IGN]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-22-2008 @ 3:13PM
jbrun85 said...
they could do transfers with SD card
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3-22-2008 @ 3:25PM
SoshiKitai said...
I remember when they made those arcades that accepted memory cards...
...sadly, no one cared to try it. :/
Let's hope this idea works.
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3-22-2008 @ 3:51PM
Mr Khan said...
You get shame for not mentioning the ultimate arcade crossover from recent memory (even though its not Namco): F-Zero GX/AX
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3-23-2008 @ 9:28AM
Greg2k said...
Actually, it kinda was Namco, in a way. Nintendo, Sega and Namco designed the Triforce arcade board, which was essentially a Gamecube with a GD-ROM drive hooked up to a gaming cabinet. You could share games between F-Zero AX and GX, although as you point out, Namco wasn't an integral part of this cross-platform support.
3-22-2008 @ 4:19PM
Unbreakable_idea said...
"Namco looking into Wii-arcade linking"
How about they look into porting Soul Caliber 4 to the Wii so I won't have to spend every waking moment cursing them for dropping the big steaming pile that was Soul Caliber Legends on us instead.
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3-24-2008 @ 4:44PM
CJLopez said...
How about some Time Crisis in the middle huh? Wii want Time Crisis!!!!!!!!!
3-22-2008 @ 4:55PM
Jhongerkong said...
Man, I wish arcades were still around. I have to go to a freaking movie theatre for some Street Fighter.
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3-22-2008 @ 7:11PM
Maxx the Slash said...
That's what Namco-Bandai get's for screwing Nintendo over after Soul Calibur II. A mediocre Soul Calibur action game is all we get? Sony and Microsoft get fighting games and we get ****?
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3-23-2008 @ 8:59PM
Croove55 said...
... I'm guessing you meant to say Soul Caliber Legends, because SCII for the cube was a work of greatness.
3-22-2008 @ 7:45PM
GamerJunkie said...
How about demanding Nintendo for releasing a more capable Wii that is as powerful as the 360.
Have you noticed why all the Wii gets mediocre ports because the hardware can keep up with the rest?
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3-22-2008 @ 10:15PM
Tom said...
The Wii can push out some damn good graphics (See Super Mario Galaxy, Corruption, Sky Crawlers, No More Heroes, Okami) It's just that almost all of the 3rd party devs are too lazy to make new graphics engines that fit the wii, so they just port over some crappy PS2 gaphics cuz the Wii can easily handle those.
Pertaining to the topic at hand...I don't care. It wouldn't make me run out to an arcade to play their to get God knows what, unless it were a special character/level/etc.