| arcaneguyver said: Bigger & better killed the arcades, I think. Cabinets got expensive, so arcade owners jacked up the price to play; one could play a very close approximation on home console for far cheaper. I also think there's a link between arcades closing and Dreamcast dying. At that time gamers were really getting into the idea of deep long games, not arcade style at all. |
Arcade owners basically destroyed their own market by jacking up the price. In Japan, it's a tightly regulated market, and I don't mean regulated with laws, I mean the business model. You make a few thousand on a cabinet and you're done, you get the next one.
Here in America, the whole idea is, hey let's make 10 grand on this one machine and then never replace it. You end up with all these old machines that cost way more than they're worth because they never lowered the price over time, and no way to resell them bc nobody wants it anymore.
It's like making a specific type of shoe that starts off trendy, and you never change the style or lower the price after the trend has worn off, and you just end up with these dated products that nobody really wants, and even if they did, are way more expensive than they should be. This is typically an american practice in business.
A great example of this is Adidas. Their track suit was very popular during the 90s and they never thought to introduce new products, they just stuck with the same old shit. Meanwhile, underarmor showed up and stole the market right out from under them because they offered things Adidas was reluctant to upgrade into.
