exA-Arcadia

Coin-operated games and arcades.
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SuperPang
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by SuperPang »

Shady arcades used to put AES consoles in cabs.

It's a completely different gaming landscape. With Neo Geo, people were paying for the better-than-console graphics, and at a time when a big portion of console releases were arcade ports.

It's a nice thought though.
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by MrJBRPG »

I am completely okay with Exa being "Arcade Only" because we already have multiple consoles (Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch), mobile devices (iOS and Android), and PCs (Windows, Mac, Linux) that have common architecture and powers.

I do not plan to buy the machine because it is out of my reach. However, I did speak to various businesses with arcade machines to spread awareness of the Exa Arcadia as new arcade platform with exclusive content, and I know various operators are vying for exclusive content that is affordable and modular. That is what avid arcade fans do to help other arcades stay afloat and beyond.

I tend to enjoy any posts made by Shou as he knows how the arcade ecosystem very well along with revealing the process on enhancing the games to be arcade friendly. Field tests for arcades are analogous to various alpha / beta / early access tests of modern times. The big difference for field test is that field tests have to take input from not only the players, but also operators as well. Therefore, with games being made for Exa Arcadia, more investment into exclusive content / arrange creation is necessary and required. That explains why some games releasing for Exa Arcadia are definitive editions with more content compared to the home version, such as Infinos Exa with 3 ship types and Exa Mode, Vritra Hexa with 2 player simultaneous and all 6 colors available to choose instead of 2 presets and single player, and Lightning Knights with selectable characters with distinct traits. By the time Exa Arcadia hits worldwide and we see success, we will better understand the arcade ecosystem as another stable, yet distinct pillar to video games.

We can all wish great success for Exa Arcadia.


Forgot one more thing:
Mantrox wrote: October 11th, 2019, 12:32 pm Why lower the price further if it is already way better than the competition?
If 95% of the market is going to be arcade operators, the logic Shou presented makes perfect sense.

It sucks that almost nobody outside of Japan is going to be able to play them, but that's the reality of the business as it stands.

I am more curious as to what the response from other competitors is going to be, as it seems they are already keeping tabs on whats going on. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the big guys started to bully operators to not buy Exa, or include a line in the contract where their games can't be on the same floor as an Exa title for just enough time to put them out of business.
Nobody outside of Japan, with exception of Round 1 USA and other foreign subsidiaries -> Nessica and AllNet; both online arcade platforms with forced revenue share
Global (Japan + the World) -> Exa Arcadia with operator keeping all income and control after direct purchase
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by Mantrox »

MrJBRPG wrote: October 11th, 2019, 2:59 pm Forgot one more thing:

Nobody outside of Japan, with exception of Round 1 USA and other foreign subsidiaries
-> Nessica and AllNet; both online arcade platforms with forced revenue share
Global (Japan + the World) -> Exa Arcadia with operator keeping all income and control after direct purchase
Huh... what?
Oh, you mean Exa not having revenue share as another incentive for them not to lower the price; i see.
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by Nomax »

Thanks Shou for these explanations regarding prices.

I perfectly understand your point.

IMHO, I think that your strategy is valid for the Japanese market but isn't adapted to the overseas arcade reality.
Location tests were conducted at Mikado which is an hardcore gamer location and not representative of Western arcades so the measured earning numbers can't be used as a base for international pricing.

As you don't do profit sharing, you have to make all your profits on sales.
What is important to operators is return on investment. The problem is that while driving and lightgun shooting games still earn here, joystick games just don't earn. So you need an aggressive price to get local operators interested. Most of them won't bother to even try if they feel they can't get a ROI in a reasonable amount of time.

As a collector, I was planning to buy all ExA games. Given the price, I'll have to focus on a few titles only.

As an operator, my Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Unlimited Noir cabinet is making €100 / month (€1/credit) while my old Daytona USA 2 twin is earning €1100 / month at a tourist location (€1/credit). I do 50/50 profit sharing with the location owner so I get only half of that amount. Admitting that an exA game will earn as much as Tekken, it would take me 70 months to get my money back on the system with the first game ($3500 bundle) and then 30 months for every extra game ($1500). That's too much. For that price, I could purchase an old used racer and get a ROI in 7 months. This is the reality of the arcade market in Europe.

When it was announced that the motherboard would support 4 cartridges, I was dreaming of placing Noir cabinets at various locations across the country with 4 games each like the Neo-Geo back in the days. That would repopulate public locations with arcade games like it was in the beginning of the '90s. It's my ultimate dream. But new Neo-Geo games were sold €700, not €1500 and arcade games were earning a lot more than today. I would be happy to pay €700 for a bare bone software kit (cartridge + instruction strip).

The question is, if you lower the price from $1500 to $700 per game, would you sell more than the double of them?
I'm pretty sure you would do, because you would attract more collectors and operators and you would extend exA-Arcadia's diffusion and awareness.
Now it's a business choice...

This said, I remain devoted to support exA-Arcadia no matter what but an inadequate pricing policy could really harm the initiative.
Last edited by Nomax on October 12th, 2019, 11:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by LEGENOARYNINLIA »

A business choice kind of like setting credit prices to €1 per game instead of €0.50... :awe:
Emulation's nice when done well
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by Nomax »

LEGENOARYNINLIA wrote: October 12th, 2019, 11:44 am A business choice kind of like setting credit prices to €1 per game instead of €0.50... :awe:
Exactly.

If it was my arcade, I would set joystick games to €0.50. But I only get half of the revenue. At that location, Terminator Salvation is priced at €2 and it earns very well at that price so I'll have a hard time telling the location owner to lower the price of plays for the already least earning machine. It's a tourist location, not a gamer's location, there's only a small percentage of returning customer. But I might try. Will setting the price to 0.50€ instead of €1 double the number of plays? Same challenge as for exA-Arcadia game prices. In my case, I doubt it would work but in exA's case, I'm pretty sure it's the thing to do to guarantee its success outside of Japan.
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by waiwainl »

Go go go Shou - let's hope this triggers a positive vibe through the arcade world :awe:

And I see no reason why, for example, Arcade Club would not buy one of these - they have other fairly new machines as well. Which can easily cost >$3500.
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by geosnow »

any news?
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by arcnl »

waiwainl wrote: October 12th, 2019, 7:47 pm Go go go Shou - let's hope this triggers a positive vibe through the arcade world :awe:

And I see no reason why, for example, Arcade Club would not buy one of these - they have other fairly new machines as well. Which can easily cost >$3500.
You would still need a >3500 machine to put the 3500 exa in though.
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by MrJBRPG »

geosnow wrote: October 20th, 2019, 11:21 pmany news?
Nothing yet...

But I did discover WIP changes to anticipate US EU preorders coming soon. Strange that the contact on the nav top is missing.
I decided to check out the Exa Arcadia website out of boredom until several changes were noticeable.

Image

Image
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by nem »

MrJBRPG wrote: October 26th, 2019, 12:36 amStrange that the contact on the nav top is missing.

It's showing up for me?

exa_ac_website.jpg

Maybe they blocked it on your end? Did you send them a lot of emails?
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by MrJBRPG »

nem wrote: October 26th, 2019, 3:34 pm
MrJBRPG wrote: October 26th, 2019, 12:36 amStrange that the contact on the nav top is missing.

It's showing up for me?


exa_ac_website.jpg


Maybe they blocked it on your end? Did you send them a lot of emails?
The contact page is always available even at the bottom page, but the contact tab is not. I used Mac OSX with Google Chrome, and I even tried with Safari, still contact is replaced with Cart. The changes can only be made by the makers of the website. Has nothing to do with emails.

Anyways, it seems that they are getting a little closer to having the orders page ready when the announcement becomes official.
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by zak »

@Shou, please can you convince CAVE to bring Deathsmiles 2 to EXA? :thumbup:
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by Jan »

AK Red Mode......
ain't got no realestateorjewelryoranyofthat
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by SuperPang »

zak wrote: October 31st, 2019, 10:29 am @Shou, please can you convince CAVE to bring Deathsmiles 2 to EXA? :thumbup:
I dunno now. Most people seem to want to play the original arcade version but on reliable hardware and Exa titles need to offer something exclusive. Fingers crossed for the new port. Deathsmiles is a popular IP though so I think we'll see something Deathsmiles at some point, if all goes to plan.
Jan wrote: October 31st, 2019, 11:45 amAK Red Mode......
But they promised :cry:

I'd love to see them start with SDOJ Exa and eventually fund a Ketsui sequel.

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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by Jan »

i`d take a SDOJ Exa with proper Sound
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by zak »

SuperPang wrote: October 31st, 2019, 11:53 am
Will that shipping box be shipped in another shipping box? :awe:
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by Jan »

don`t worry, you know a bit of glue can fix that for you :lol:
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by emphatic »

Deathsmiles 2 with new graphics by Vanillaware, please.
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Re: exA-Arcadia

Post by Shou »

Jan wrote: October 11th, 2019, 11:20 am Razor blade business, the idea to sell your hardware at cost to generate a large user base and make the profit with the games.
Razer is a $1.5 billion USD company. They can afford to attempt those kind of loss leader projects.
Pass a few million my way and we can run a money losing business too.
Your hardware will also up end with only a handful games too before it dies out just like many formats in the past: ex-board, SKOPRO, Crystal System, PGM2/3, etc
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