spmbx wrote:I much agree with Mark's video you're reacting to, but i wouldn't have watched his video either of it was over half an hour of talk over a static background. I'm just not that interested in tribalism i guess.
Fair enough, I don't claim to be a youtuber and it might be boring to just listen to me "rant" for over 30 minutes. Here's a text summary if you can't be bothered to listen to the video:
- Self-Introduction - my handle is alamone, I'm an arcade PCB enthusiast, I'm especially into 2D shooters, AKA shmups. Have a pretty large PCB collection and 3 CRT cabs. I've also developed rom hacks for practicing shmups on PCBs - a link to my hacks is in the description. In particular, the Gradius IV hack is very full featured and has stage select, software rapid fire, in-game pause with full powerup anytime, weapon select edit mode, and display gadgets for the current loop/stage, option hunter timer, and blue capsule countdown.
What is this video? A rebuttal and clarification in response to markmsx's exa review video - link in description.
- I don't normally do videos, but since he posted a video on Youtube, I figure the best response is by another Youtube video. So it won't have any fancy production values but just me talking and rebutting his points.
- Nothing against markmsx personally - in fact I helped with his DDP romhack commission by Grego, by fixing bugs and adding QoL features. See link in description.
- But his video was just too one sided and filled with inaccuracies.
- Although I personally know many exa arcadia staff members, this is not a paid promotion.
- They are first and foremost arcade enthusiasts who want to see the arcade scene thrive, and have all contributed to the community:
- eric chung aka shoutime, CEO, arcade game preservation enthusiast who obtains games that would otherwise never be dumped
- alex marshall aka trap15, developer, made many arcade hacks and enhancements, including a way to fix bricked seibu SPI motherboards called SPI Revive (link in description), a hack to fix slowdown on metal slug 2 called metal slug 2 turbo (link in description), etc.
- mike moffitt aka hatsune mike, developer, designed PCB streaming device "NAC splitfire" which allows you to easily stream a JAMMA arcade cab feed in realtime (link in description)
- That said, I am not going to be a shill for exa - while I defend them in this video, I will also describe what I don't like about them.
To give a broad overview, there are five points I'd like to cover:
1. Warranty void sticker - MarkMSX made way too much fuss about this, because he misunderstands the target audience of the eXA system.
2. Warranty denial sob story - this sounds too suspicious to assign blame wholly on eXA like markMSX did.
3. Price - MarkMSX did not compare the price of the system to it's competitors, which would be other new arcade systems.
4. Discussion of the positive aspects of the system - MarkMSX's coverage was way too one-sided in the negative direction.
5. Aspects of eXA I don't like.
1. Warranty void sticker, which he spent around 90% of the video on:
- Purchasing PCBs as an individual is not a right - try buying a new arcade game from a large corporation - they won't give you time of day
- Target market is arcade operators - needs to address their concerns, not the general consumer
- Also need to meet the concerns of the developers - bootlegging and piracy is a huge problem, especially for PC based hardware.
- Complained about lack of online updates, but again, this is to harden the security. It's not an "oversight" as MarkMSX characterises it.
- How many consoles were hacked because of buffer overflow bugs or rendering bugs in web browsers, or proxy server redirects, or other workarounds? Why expose the system to another attack vector? I can understand why updates are entirely offline, although I do take issue with how offline updates are handled, as discussed later in aspects of eXA I don't like.
- Surprised about it being a generic PC? Newsflash - all companies have use PC based hardware since around the 2000s. It's simply not cost efficient to built bespoke PCB hardware like the old days.
2. Warranty denial story.
- Story about friend being denied warranty is suspicious
- Merely replacing the CMOS battery does not brick the system. I confirmed this with the CEO of eXA. MarkMSX was fear mongering about dying CMOS batteries causing eXAs to brick. This is fake news. Only attempting to circumvent the security causes the system to brick.
- So, this becomes a he said she said situation - who do you believe?
- Reading between the lines - I think that while he had the case open to try and get rid of the "mildew smell" or whatever, he tried to mess around with the system's security and bricked it, and then tried to blame the company for attempting to hack the system.
- The guy admitted to buying a second system. I think that neatly summarizes who was in the right.
3. Price
- Again, you have to think about the target market: arcade operators.
- These are brand new systems, with no requirement of online revenue sharing as is common with all Japanese companies - revenue share can be as high as 40% of the net income - for every 100 yen inserted, 40 yen goes to the game company. For exa's case, you pay up-front and there are no ongoing costs.
- Depending on how busy your location is, the cost of the system can be easily recovered over the course of a few months.
- Also, the price comparison should not be other consoles, but the prices of new arcade games from other manufacturers. They will cost you thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars. A new raw thrills cabinet will run you over 40 thousand dollars.
- Even when considering these systems for individual use, pricing is not much different from the Neo Geo AES model.
- Neo Geo AES released in 1990 for $650. Accounting for inflation, that's $1512 in 2023 dollars.
- eXA motherboard brand new costs $2623. Yes, it's more expensive, but the hardware is more advanced compared to Neo Geo hardware when considering the timeframe it was released. When that's taken into consideration, I'd say the price is comparable to the Neo Geo model.
- Where it stumbles is the cost of the games. AES games were up to about $300, and that was still expensive compared to say, $60-100 SNES or Genesis games of the time. eXA games cost anywhere from around $500 for the riki NES ports to $2.4k for cave/toaplan/touhou limited editions . I'm not going to mince words - this is expensive. But again, the arcade market is the primary target, and the home market is a secondary consideration.
- Also let's look at the price of some of the original games on the used market:
Gimmick Famicom cart - recent YAJ new boxed copy is 161,510 yen. eXA version has new modes and updated graphics.
SDOJ PCB - recent YAJ used kit is 461,000 yen, and didn't even include the original poster. eXA version has new modes, is cheaper, and better audio and graphical quality. I used to have the PCB - audio was overdriven and terrible sounding. That's the primary reason I ended up selling it and buying the eXA version.
- Given these prices, one could argue that buying an EXA is cheaper.
4. No description of positives of the system
- Mark was too scared to even use the system for fear of damaging it or whatever. It's not going to be damaged unless you try to hack it.
- There are many positives, like the wide compatibility with various monitors, even support for 4:3 CRTs if you use a HDMI to VGA converter. This allows the eXA to slot into old school CRT cabs as well as modern LCD cabs, or even to home CRTs and LCD TVs if you purchase eXA for individual use.
- eXA developers have a respect for the source material. For example, let's take a look at Gimmick. The original system was Famicom. While it's true the NES resolution is 256x240, it's shown on an analog CRT display and is streched horizontally to a 4:3 aspect ratio. It's not simply displayed 1:1 with square pixels, resulting in nearly a square. We didn't use square TVs back in the day. Look at the footage of the Gimmick "special" remake. They are using an incorrect aspect ratio with square pixels. Even though this was pointed out to the developers, Bitwave Games, they still persist in using 1:1 aspect ratio, presumably because it's easier to program. This just shows you the difference in respect for the source materials between eXA and other developers like Bitwave Games.
- eXA puts an emphasis on reducing input lag, including transparently listing the measured input lag of all of their games. Try to get input lag numbers from any other game company - you won't get it.
- eXA has gone as far as developing their own protocol, JVS dash, to further reduce latency when compared to traditional protocols like JVS. They obviously care about game feel and responsiveness, unlike a lot of game companies that will just say the input lag is "good enough" or that they "didn't encounter any issues during testing" without providing hard latency numbers to back it up. The recent TMNT cowabunga collection comes to mind, where independent lag measurements were as bad as 90+ ms, but the developer denied there was any issue.
5. What I don't like about exa
- Update process - have to pay shipping both ways - process also unclear - do you have to insure? These are 2K$ carts after all.
- MarkMSX commented that it's probably not good for the life of the system to be shipping it back and forth for updates. This is simply not true, since what's being updated is the carts, not the motherboards. The carts are using flash memory, not spinning hard drives or other fragile media, and it's very unlikely they will be damaged in shipping.
- Paint job on limited editions cheap and flakes off easily.
- Not a big deal for me, but might be a deal breaker for collectors - I care more about playing the games.
