EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

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el_rika
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by el_rika »

mikejmoffitt wrote:
z0mbie90 wrote:
Zeether wrote: Sure, just let me empty my entire bank account
Or you can get Infinos Gaiden on steam for around 10 Euros. Sure the EXA version will have some exclusive content.
But if you want to play the game and don't wanna empty your bank account just get the steam version.
The exA version has 2f total input lag thanks to trap15's efforts, while the steam version will have a frame or two more than that.
So what :?:
Is this the going rate for one frame of lag? 2000$?

People made records with 5 + frames with Sdoj, i have a feeling they'll be ok with this one too.
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Elixir
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Elixir »

mikejmoffitt wrote:The exA version has 2f total input lag thanks to trap15's efforts, while the steam version will have a frame or two more than that.
This really sells it.
I haven't actively browsed/used this forum in many years and it's no longer an accurate representation of me.

I have retired from genre-specific content creation after 13 years, but I'll always love this little genre in my own personal way.
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MrJBRPG
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by MrJBRPG »

Found a nice piece of news from EXA Arcadia that their arcade hardware has been sold to over 200 locations worldwide, and their initial lot has been sold out in less than 3 months. Therefore, it must have sold more than 200 hardware units.

https://exa.ac/en/2020/04/15/exa-arcadi ... t-sold-out

Doing the math of price (~$2000 lowest end) by units (theoretical)

$2000 per unit x 200 units = $400000 revenue generated at least

I took lowest possible price due to game bundle deals listed on website.

Spoke with Arcade Heroes on the discord server, and they seem to accomplish their goal as an affordable arcade machine for operators. All other modern arcade games, particularly indie made would be lucky to sell at least 50 units as dedicated games.


Hopefully when the pandemic subsides, the arcade industry can bounce back slowly, with safety procedures in mind.
Zeether
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Zeether »

I find it funny how they're touting the Chaos Code release as "the first release in arcades outside Japan" when Round 1 has had access to Nesica cabinets and presumably Chaos Code on there as well. But that's probably Shou dismissing Nesica as "failing" because according to him the PC cracks killed the entire platform :roll:

Good on that first shipment I guess, except I'm sure all 200 supposed locations will probably drop it from their lineup after discovering how trash the input lag is.
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Nate123
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Nate123 »

Don't put words in others mouths and round 1 is super rare to boot.
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cave hermit
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by cave hermit »

So this is just a dedicated x86 windows thing right?

What stops exa arcadia from having its games dumped and cracked to run on standard PCs
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by mikejmoffitt »

Zeether wrote:I'm sure all 200 supposed locations will probably drop it from their lineup after discovering how trash the input lag is.
Does the original release of Chaos Code have bad input lag?
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Zaarock
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Zaarock »

Zeether wrote:Good on that first shipment I guess, except I'm sure all 200 supposed locations will probably drop it from their lineup after discovering how trash the input lag is.
Aka to Blue is still just one game, it's been clear that the exA system itself can do better.
cave hermit wrote:What stops exa arcadia from having its games dumped and cracked to run on standard PCs
Some speculation: Shou & co. probably know how to pull this off better than anyone if they have put the effort into it. At the very least the games are in a proprietary format and it seems insane for anyone want to crack in its current state. As currently the only way to update the system or games is sending them back to the factory. No doubt it happens some year though.
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Udderdude
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Udderdude »

Don't know this for sure, but I think Sega Lindbergh took quite a long time to get running mostly because it was running Linux, and you had to write a library and binary compatibility layer for it to even work on Windows.
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MrJBRPG
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by MrJBRPG »

Every time I see a tweet from the developer behind Vritra Hexa, it feels more polished and definitive than ever.

I wish somebody would translate these tweets; sometimes I cannot understand as much from machine translation.

Stage branching and stage score ranking with video:
https://twitter.com/saddy575/status/1252662290245054465

Picture showing 4:3 letterboxing (dev wants to do more polish it seems)
https://twitter.com/saddy575/status/1252661088966946816
Cannonballs
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Cannonballs »

How many people here own an EXA? What is your favorite game?
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trap15
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by trap15 »

Zeether wrote:I find it funny how they're touting the Chaos Code release as "the first release in arcades outside Japan" when Round 1 has had access to Nesica cabinets and presumably Chaos Code on there as well.
It's the first localized release. Round1 is a special case because they literally just have Japanese connections, you can't get Chaos Code outside Japan outside of Round1.
Zeether wrote:Good on that first shipment I guess, except I'm sure all 200 supposed locations will probably drop it from their lineup after discovering how trash the input lag is.
The exa version of Chaos Code has 1 less frame of input lag than the nesica version, so I don't know what you're going on about. There's a few games with input lag issues, but it's not a platform issue.

More like Seether amirite
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Udderdude
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Udderdude »

Code: Select all

>It's called EXA
>Doesn't have an exaFLOP of performance
Lame.
trap15 wrote:More like Seether amirite
Oh snap.

I'm sure they're taking input lag seriously, though. It's always going to be an issue with modern hardware, unfortunately.
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cave hermit
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by cave hermit »

Like I'm happy that the devs are paying so much attention to input lag, but I'm not sure that it'll really be a marketable point to anybody besides the most hardcore of hardcore players. Then again I suppose American Round 1s still pull in the hardcore Bemani crowd regularly, but I get the feeling that largely has to do with the controls requiring a dedicated setup.

It really does warm the cockles of my heart to see so much effort going into minimizing input latency for an arcade port of Mr. Gimmick, but I'm not sure an arcade operator will look at the game and see a money maker, and I'm not sure that a Mr. Gimmick enthusiast would leave the house and pay money to play when he/she could just boot up a NES emulator and deal with some additional input latency that may or may not be noticeable.
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by mikejmoffitt »

cave hermit wrote:Like I'm happy that the devs are paying so much attention to input lag, but I'm not sure that it'll really be a marketable point to anybody besides the most hardcore of hardcore players.
When games have input lag, it adds a subconscious unfair difficulty to a game that isn't necessary. Even if people aren't thinking about it, or don't know the term, making a game subtly harder will turn anybody off of it through discouragement.

A number of posters continue to make sardonic posts about it, so there's a reason that it gets brought up. Between that, and armchair market advice, it is at times draining to attempt to be communicative or consider any outside input.
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blossom
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by blossom »

I agree that input lag is a subconscious thing, kinda like bad video editing: you notice when it's there, but when it's not, you won't notice because the game is doing its job. So reducing input lag is a noble goal, too bad the end product is releasing in the arcades which is such a baffling choice to me. The year is 2020 and arcades are dead outside of Japan and Galloping Ghost Arcade, currently in the process of dying in Japan as well from what I hear.

Releasing on arcades is effectively region locking a game for no particular reason outside of nostalgia for an outdated type of publishing. I can't see a reason any game releasing on EXA should not instead be released on consoles and PC. The most attractive and logical reason for arcade releases, back in the day, was how arcade hardware had the cutting edge. Consoles had too many technical limitations. That isn't true anymore. I'm no expert so I could be talking out of my ass to some degree, but I'm convinced any EXA release will profit less than if they'd just released on modern platforms. A few quarters in a game that people will likely not play again or $15-$20 for a game someone can own forever?
Star Lurker
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Star Lurker »

blossom wrote: Releasing on arcades is effectively region locking a game for no particular reason outside of nostalgia for an outdated type of publishing. I can't see a reason any game releasing on EXA should not instead be released on consoles and PC. The most attractive and logical reason for arcade releases, back in the day, was how arcade hardware had the cutting edge. Consoles had too many technical limitations. That isn't true anymore. I'm no expert so I could be talking out of my ass to some degree, but I'm convinced any EXA release will profit less than if they'd just released on modern platforms. A few quarters in a game that people will likely not play again or $15-$20 for a game someone can own forever?
Fairly short time lurker, (8 months or so) first time posting here.
Most of the EXA releases so far are ports of PC/mobile stuff already available on non-arcade platforms, as opposed to completely new games. Of course, there's different and/or changed content (sometimes significantly changed), but that's there to get them sought out and played by people who already own (and like) the games in question. The Gimmick remake/remaster/adaptation changes that equation somewhat, but it's still based on an existing game. I see the EXA ports as "cherry on top" ports that can be done by developers for relatively cheap (if the Exa folk want a port) and make a little extra money in the process. The impression I get from the press blurbs behind it, EXA-Arcadia exists for (mainly Japanese) arcade ops who want more "traditional" games that are relatively cheap to install and replace compared to more gimmicky stuff and most critically of all, always-online traditional games locked behind monthly lease fees. Personally, I would like to see stuff like trap0x15's SaiDaiOuJou port get a PC release somewhere down the line, minus the EXA-exclusive modes, but I'm not sure the EXA folk are willing to make that happen, even a few years later. That said, I get the impression that changes made for the EXA ports can be fed back into other versions, so long as it isn't the selling point "exclusive" content, though there are no guarantees of these patches happening for this game. (Due to the status of the developer, FK digital, who likely made the EXA port deal before they chose to slowly "wind-down" development of their games for personal reasons)
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clippa
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by clippa »

Most of the games were pc games anyway so I'm guessing it was minimal effort to just add the little token "exclusive" content that the exa team were asking for.
I'm guessing the team behind the exa are the ones taking all of the risks and the people making the games haven't got much to lose by joining in?
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by mikejmoffitt »

blossom wrote:Releasing on arcades is effectively region locking a game for no particular reason outside of nostalgia for an outdated type of publishing. I can't see a reason any game releasing on EXA should not instead be released on consoles and PC.
I think this is a shortsighted view, and silences anybody who has an interest in the arcade environment outside of nostalgia. I don't care about the nostalgic memories of Gen-Xers. I openly dislike nostalgia-based marketing and fervor, because I think it discredits the media or interest for its legitimate merits.

It is a failure of the west that arcades quickly became shitholes with poor maintenance and ergonomics from '80s wood cabinets with little improvement.
blossom wrote:A few quarters in a game that people will likely not play again or $15-$20 for a game someone can own forever?
People who try a game once or twice and then never play it again are a narrow slice of potential patrons, and that represents a kind of narrow view of the market. The income from the game goes to the arcade operator, not to the game creator. In profit-sharing arrangements, that's not the case (e.g.the majority of Sega and Konami machines) that's not the case, and the income to the operator is reduced.

Let's say a game is developed, and sold to operators for $1000 per cartridge. One hundred copies sold is $100,000. That's 1000 sales of a $10 steam game. I want to bring up this example to point out the power of a single sale. If a game fails to hook someone beyond being played once or twice, a good amount of that blame is distributed across the environment its played in (quality of the space, appeal, availability of social interaction/support), the game itself, and the cost to play it. Until the pandemic hit, Aka to Blue has been doing great on location. The developer profits more from operators gaining confidence in their product, instead of from direct customer interaction.

My personal interest in the project is from wanting to support the arcade as a social game space. People like to watch other people do things well, or to challenge a local champion in a versus title. None of these gameplay aspects are mutually exclusive to home, arcade, mobile, online, etc. but each environment and platform is different. It is a space that, when cared for and well curated, provides a venue for competition, a space to meet people who like to play similar games, and a way to discover new games. These goals can not be achieved in an environment that has not been maintained and supported by stakeholders who care.
Last edited by mikejmoffitt on Fri Apr 24, 2020 1:03 am, edited 2 times in total.
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MrJBRPG
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by MrJBRPG »

mikejmoffitt wrote: Let's say a[n Exa Arcadia] game is developed, and sold to operators for $1000 per cartridge. One hundred copies sold is $100,000.
Corrected that and it does seem like a huge sales number, equivalent to selling 10,000 home console / PC version sold for $10 in terms of gross revenue.

The truth is that with arcade operators as audience, arcade games have higher prices and lower number of units needed to reach that revenue. However, games for arcades have higher barriers to entry. Meanwhile, with home console / PC have a super large install base and accessible entry point that any developer can publish the game, thus justifying lower prices for thousands of players directly.

Thank you mikejmoffit and Star Lurker for understanding Exa Arcadia's mission and being constructive.
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Star Lurker »

I'm not the biggest fan of EXA or their platform. (that's MrJBRPG ;) ) But I do grok what they are trying to do, and even if I'm unsure with how long they'll survive for, I hope they are successful at their aims. That said, I'd take some of their platform security claims more seriously if they had an independent security audit performed (there have been many claimed "uncrackable" DRM schemes that have been broken) on their DRM and released a redacted version of the report, with their auditor's consent. But audits are costly, and this is a product from an independent startup, so I (sorta) understand. (And, of course, operators don't care that much about the "how the sausage is made" level details on this sort of thing)
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MrJBRPG
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by MrJBRPG »

https://twitter.com/exaarcadiaceo/statu ... 16417?s=21

Looks like we have a next wave of titles ready for launch, with two vertical shooters including Psyvariar Delata AC and Shikondo Red Purgatory. You can also include the 4 player 8 way shooting game Lightning Knights.

With more Exa Arcadia machines, there's always more games to sell

Too bad my home state California has to wait longer than others for arcades and bars to reopen due to its strict measures. Otherwise other areas reopen sooner like Japan, Hong Kong, and Utah.
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clippa
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by clippa »

MrJBRPG wrote:my home state California has to wait longer than others for arcades and bars to reopen
You can buy these games on steam while you wait for the lockdown to be lifted.

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NeoStrayCat
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by NeoStrayCat »

Still waits paitently for Strania EX. >.>
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MrJBRPG
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by MrJBRPG »

More tweets from developer of Vritra Hexa.

This tweet showcases 2 player attract mode with shockwave by bumping into each other (most likely for bullet canceling or so)
https://twitter.com/saddy575/status/1266361032705888258

And another, which by quick translation machine, tracks the number of hours of the game staying on long term to ensure no memory leaks or crashes, like any game platform
https://twitter.com/saddy575/status/1266790345498488832

I am more excited for the new things for Vritra Hexa.
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yosai
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by yosai »

MrJBRPG wrote:And another, which by quick translation machine, tracks the number of hours of the game staying on long term to ensure no memory leaks or crashes, like any game platform
32 hours is hardly long term. :lol:
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by trap15 »

Generally game centers have closing hours, in which the machines are turned off, so it's long term in arcade terms anyways. But that also has stats that can be observed to ensure that there aren't any leaks, so 32 hours is plenty enough to catch something like that.
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by spmbx »

They can't turn them off anymore for much longer though. Fog gaming! :P
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MrJBRPG
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by MrJBRPG »

[UPDATE] Video removed upon request from Arcade Heroes....

However, the loading times was based on publicly available commercial products.

In summary, the loading times for each game varies depending on file size, with bigger file size having longer loading times.​ Some can take 15-30 seconds or longer after game selected. Other smaller sizes take less than 10 seconds.
All I can say that for launch games, that consist of mostly upgraded versions from home versions, they are not a good value for average gamers unless being a serious arcade collector or lucky to find Exa Arcadia nearby.
Also for operators, having long load times with awkward transition to color and black, makes casual customers feel like the games are broken and only the hardcore would stick around.


As a current minimum viable product and having only one game per motherboard, the load time is tolerable. However, with multiple games, the time wasted for loading games and switching games can add up really fast. Unless Exa Arcadia can improve and optimize loading times, the game selection and loading methods are are similar to Taito Nesica and Sega All-Net with video snippets showing gameplay highlights and button combos for game select menu.
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Re: EXAーARCADIA [New Arcade Platform/Publisher]

Post by Zeether »

Mikado is done partnering with EXA: https://ch.nicovideo.jp/mikadogame/blomaga/ar1920580
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