Arcade vs. Home Consoles.

[Aswald]

This is probably the trickiest post I've ever come up with. There are so many variables, it may be impossible to really answer.

Ever since the earliest "dedicated" Pong home console, we have had game systems that were intended to allow you to bring home arcade games.

However, even back in the late 1970s, arcade games were usually at least a step ahead of home videogaming technology.

In my case, I'm thinking in particular about the ColecoVision and Atari 5200, here's where the problem comes in: the next game I'm writing a review for is CV Carnival. Until the appearance of Opcode's fantastic Space Invaders Collection, this was absolutely the best arcade-to-home translation for that console. And Qix and Berzerk were such games for the 5200.

I guess the problem is that arcade games themselves are so uneven. Some "push the envelope," while others are not nearly so sophisticated. Zaxxon, Space Panic, Qix, Astro Blaster, Carnival, and Astro Fighter all came out within a couple of years, yet you could hardly say they were all of equal, or even similar, levels of technology. Even games of 1982 alone were like this. In the mid-1990s, Sega was supposed to have come out with something for their arcade games that was so far ahead of anything else, programmers at the time figured it would be at least 5 YEARS before any home console could handle it.

And the years 1982 through the CV's effective run showed a techno-improvement in arcade games. So, considering the "learning curve," did it gain/lose ground, or break even?

You also have to keep in mind that home consoles often deliberately fail to use their fullest abilities. Of course the CV could have handled a four-screen version of DK and DKJr., complete with all gaming elements (if not the intermissions and such?).


The question I'm asking is this: throughout the years, and especially now, how far behind were/are home consoles compared to the arcade games of their time? This is for the more technically aware here.

[zektor]

I don't think they were able to "match" the arcade to perfection so to speak until the Dreamcast/PS2/Xbox/GCN era. Before that, they were progressively getting closer however. I kind of preferred comparing home ports to the true arcade game as opposed as viewing the game at home as a mirror image of the arcade.....call me crazy. And sometimes, these home ports were even better than the arcade version. Double Dragon (NES) comes to mind....I much prefer the NES version personally.

[Ed Oscuro]

I'd say we have fallen behind again, as companies (like Cave) don't want to attempt to port a game to the aging PS2. As people adopt the newer consoles this should shift forward again, of course.

Also a consideration are the still-elaborate setups in many arcade games which sometimes offer controls you can't buy cheaply (if at all) for a home console.

[CartCollector]

And sometimes, these home ports were even better than the arcade version. Double Dragon (NES) comes to mind....I much prefer the NES version personally.

Bionic Commando for the NES is another better-than-arcade port. I haven't played the arcade version, but from what I've heard, the NES home version is much better.

[Arcade Antics]

The question I'm asking is this: throughout the years, and especially now, how far behind were/are home consoles compared to the arcade games of their time? This is for the more technically aware here.

1970s: half step behind
1980-1984: one step behind / half step behind
1985-1989: half step behind / in-step
1990-1995: half step behind / in-step
1996-2000: in-step
2000-present: in-step / half a step behind. Primarily based on - as Ed pointed out - the elaborate arcade game control setups.

[Ed Oscuro]

Great list AA!

I wonder if 1990-95 wasn't "one step behind" again, though, because of the 3D systems that were starting to appear. Of course there were lots of Space-Harrier style games out in the late 80s that couldn't be done properly at all on home consoles (it took years for a half-decent Galaxy Force II port to arive, ditto for Night Striker); even home computers of the time had a hard time doing them, and in markets where 386 and above processors started gaining market these games weren't ported for such systems so "domestic" 3D games took hold (that or too much time had passed).

In terms of the "mainstream," though, the Genesis and SNES really did a decent job bringing the arcade experience home, even if there was often a lot missing (Altered Beast and Final Fight come to mind here).

[Trebuken]

Current or 'new release' arcade machines have always seemed to have superior hardware to home console. If a game is being ported to a home console it has already been in the arcades a year or two. Sure there are excepions, notably Neo Geo; though I think the newest Neo Geo games were made available for arcades before consumers...not sure about that part.

Of course, as someone mentioned, arcade machines these days are relying on novelty stuff like guns and sit down machines. Star Wars Arcade blew away anything a console could do when it was releaesd, but now it's ordinary...need that one ported...

[CartCollector]

Production for the Neo-Geo AES (home system) ended in 1997, so any MVS (arcade) games released after that time were never ported to the AES. Though there was probably some lag between the games being released on the MVS and being ported to more recent home consoles (PS2/Xbox compilations come to mind).

[j_factor]

I think when Playstation and Saturn came out, home consoles "caught up" to arcade technology... then Sega's Model 3 board came out the next year, and arcades were ahead again.

But then, once DC came out, it was as good as anything in the arcade scene. And since then, there's been little incentive for new arcade technology (due to the diminished market). After Naomi, there was little progression in arcade boards, with most of the new boards being based on home consoles. Chihiro was the "best" arcade board for years, and it was basically just an Xbox with more RAM. The Lindbergh is good enough that arcades haven't fallen behind consoles, but they no longer have an edge.

[agbulls]

I think when Playstation and Saturn came out, home consoles "caught up" to arcade technology... then Sega's Model 3 board came out the next year, and arcades were ahead again.

But then, once DC came out, it was as good as anything in the arcade scene. And since then, there's been little incentive for new arcade technology (due to the diminished market). After Naomi, there was little progression in arcade boards, with most of the new boards being based on home consoles. Chihiro was the "best" arcade board for years, and it was basically just an Xbox with more RAM. The Lindbergh is good enough that arcades haven't fallen behind consoles, but they no longer have an edge.

Mentioning the Chihiro and Lindbergh makes me think we should try to make an order of progression of arcade cards, hence comparing them to their console equivalents (or substandard equivalent if that makes sense). Anyone wanna try?

[Rob2600]

This is my take on the arcade vs. home console situation. Keep in mind, I am much more familiar with home video game consoles than arcade game hardware, so please correct me if I'm wrong:

In the 1970s through the mid 1990s, it seemed like arcade game developers were constantly developing new, custom hardware for their games. That's why arcade games were always so much more powerful than home video game consoles...the developers were always at the cutting edge of technology. Then, beginning in the mid 1990s, arcade game developers realized they could streamline their hardware, reduce development time, and increase profit by reusing arcade boards more frequently than before (Sega's Model 1, Model 2, Model 3, and NAOMI, Namco's System 11, System 12, and System 22, Midway's T Unit, V Unit, and Quicksilver II, etc.).

In addition, each new generation of home video game consoles became more powerful...and more popular...and video game developers realized that there was a ton of money to be made creating games for home consoles, as opposed to creating expensive arcade cabinets. The fact that many arcade games cost $1 to play is a huge blow to the coin-op industry as well.

Does any of this make sense?

[Aswald]

Having been around since the very first "Pong" game of the 1970s came out, this is how it seemed to my "gamer" eyes...

In the very beginning, arcade technology was EXTREMELY primitive. Black and white monitors, squares, paddles. ANYTHING new, even if only the ability to show (gasp!) TWO COLORS, was an eye-dazzling thing! Hell, when someone thought of using translucent color overlays, it was something- some us us kids took home some cellophane from art class to try it on our own televisions (which in those days were very often black and white).

This meant that it wasn't very hard for the dedicated consoles of those days to match it.

Of course, you also have to remember that this was still virgin territory. Any new IDEA was just that- new. Since the technology was so primitive, though, it was largely creative skill to come up with something new. Breakout was significant. Then, tank games, and then...check out KLOV and read up on what made Galaxian significant, technically.

Another thing was that from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, tremendous advances in what arcade games could do were made. In just a few years we went from Breakout to Zaxxon, it seemed. This meant that things like the Atari VCS and Odyssey 2, which were based on 1977(ish) home technology, suddenly fell way behind. Especially since they themselves were somewhat behind arcade games of their own time.

This is why the ColecoVision came out, along with the 5200 and the lesser consoles. But even they could not match the best arcade games (actually, most technically advanced) of their time. Still, this was a mixed era; sure, you had games like Zaxxon, but you also had games like Mousetrap and Berzerk from around these times. This meant that you could reasonably expect your home console to bring home some arcade games better than others.

At this point, it is very important to point out something else- home consoles are usually built to play a wide variety of games on a home television. Arcade games, weighing hundreds of pounds in some cases, are meant to play one. All of that for one game, while the 5200, NES, CV, etc. must be jack-of-all-trades. Then there is the annoying fact that home consoles' abilities were often not fully used. Compare 5200 Pac-Man to Ms. Pac-man or Super Pac-Man.

During the NES era, arcade games had technically advanced, but most of the arcade-suitable ideas had been used. This is why most arcade games were based on earlier concepts. In fact, except for Tetris (which any home console can do pretty well), it wasn't really until the Mario-64 games when something truly new came out. But the fact remained that arcade games were still ahead- look at After Burner for the SMS.

Throughout the 1990s, game technology in the arcades had advanced, but by now there was a problem: sure, ANY advance back in the 1970s was significant- an inch is big next to 3 inches- but now, more and more, the advance had to be BIG-BIG to really stand out. Couple this with the fact that the 1990s arcade scene did not show the innovation of the 1970s and 1980s, and it was easy for the home consoles, which could give you games meant to be played for long periods of time (RPGs) to finally match the arcades.

We are in an era where it is truly difficult for an arcade game to have something to wow today's "spoiled" gamers, with consoles better than the best arcade games of 20 years ago. Until they come out with true 3-D, they may never, except for certain disturbing trends in "virtual reality," where electrodes can artificially stimulate certain physical reactions (such as something that can affect the portion of the middle ear that creates nausea when you, say, shoot down suddenly in a jet aircraft), amaze as they once did.

In other words, just how much more can these games do now? When you hit a plateau, it's easier for something to catch up. Then what?

[CosmicMonkey]

Production for the Neo-Geo AES (home system) ended in 1997, so any MVS (arcade) games released after that time were never ported to the AES.

Incorrect. The last official game was Samurai Spirits Zero Special (Samurai Shodown V Special) released July 2004. This was available in both AES and MVS format. And most MVS games from 97 - 2004 also received an AES release.

[ubersaurus]

Production for the Neo-Geo AES (home system) ended in 1997, so any MVS (arcade) games released after that time were never ported to the AES. Though there was probably some lag between the games being released on the MVS and being ported to more recent home consoles (PS2/Xbox compilations come to mind).

Although I'm fairly certain the AES consoles stopped production in 1997, games continued to be produced on the machine until 2004.

People have mentioned how the SNES/genesis era saw arcade ports that were as good as the actual arcade, but I can't think of any. SF2's sprites were smaller, were missing frames, had oddball music, etc. and the same could be said for pretty much all the fighting game ports. I can't think of too many shooter ports, but I know that Raiden was no where close to the arcade version.

They got close in the saturn/ps1 era, at least for 2d games, but I don't think they matched on 3d until the Dreamcast came along.

[j_factor]

People have mentioned how the SNES/genesis era saw arcade ports that were as good as the actual arcade, but I can't think of any.

Flicky on Genesis was arcade-perfect.

I think a lot of 16-bit arcade ports (moreso on Genesis and Turbografx than SNES), while maybe not exact, were as good as their arcade originals. I'm thinking like, Monster Lair, Cotton, Bonanza Bros., Ghouls n' Ghosts, R-Type, Buster Bros., Final Fight, Forgotten Worlds, Parasol Stars, etc.

They got close in the saturn/ps1 era, at least for 2d games, but I don't think they matched on 3d until the Dreamcast came along.

I can think of a few 3D games that were very close, if not perfect. Virtua Fighter series, Decathlete, Die Hard Arcade, Virtua Cop, Tekken, and so on...definitely in the minority though.

[Arcade Antics]

During the NES era, arcade games had technically advanced, but most of the arcade-suitable ideas had been used. This is why most arcade games were based on earlier concepts. In fact, except for Tetris (which any home console can do pretty well), it wasn't really until the Mario-64 games when something truly new came out. But the fact remained that arcade games were still ahead- look at After Burner for the SMS.

You're sort of all over the place here, but I'll address one point I think you were trying to make. Which is (if I understand correctly) that NES era arcade games were still ahead of home consoles, using SMS After Burner as an example.

That's a great example of a game that should have never been attempted in the first place. If you want to compare arcade and home games of that era on the SMS, how about Fantasy Zone. It's not arcade perfect, but it's very close, maybe half a step behind the arcade version. At worst, only a step behind.

On the contrary, look at Castlevania on the NES - it's a carbon copy of the arcade game. So using that as the example, one could easily say that the NES era was on equal ground with the home consoles.

[gepeto]

THe funny thing is I loved golden axe at the arcade. When I played the genesis version I was impressed and thought that was very close to the arcade. It just sounded played and just felt right. From that point I was really hooked on the genesis.

[Aswald]

You're sort of all over the place here, but I'll address one point I think you were trying to make. Which is (if I understand correctly) that NES era arcade games were still ahead of home consoles, using SMS After Burner as an example.

That's a great example of a game that should have never been attempted in the first place. If you want to compare arcade and home games of that era on the SMS, how about Fantasy Zone. It's not arcade perfect, but it's very close, maybe half a step behind the arcade version. At worst, only a step behind.

On the contrary, look at Castlevania on the NES - it's a carbon copy of the arcade game. So using that as the example, one could easily say that the NES era was on equal ground with the home consoles.

Well, that's sort of the point I made earlier- about how arcade games from the same time were not of equal advancement. If you go to KLOV and just randomly look at games from 1982 alone, you can see this. The 5200 almost cloned Qix and Berzerk, but failed miserably with Congo Bongo. And Subroc should not have been attempted for the CV, at least not in 1983, but look at Carnival. So no, since the NES could not really handle the most advanced games of its effective era, it was not on equal ground- it's just that, again, arcade scenes, past and present, are never equally advanced. I guess what I'm trying to say is: when could home consoles effectively reproduce the MOST ADVANCED arcade games of their time, and apparently the answer is "never," although today the technical aspect is so advanced, any further advancement in those areas is becoming increasingly unimportant- a 50,000 foot mountain and a 51,000 foot mountain are only different in a technical way; they are both GIGANTIC. Back in the 1970s, it was a 1 foot hill next to, say, a 1 1/3 foot hill- the difference is very noticable.

The biggest problem is when, as in the 1981-1982 era, arcade games suddenly leap ahead. Sega also did something like this in the mid-1990s. Unless you design a home console that is itself far ahead of the very best arcade game when released, you are then doomed to fall behind immediately. The fact was, none of the home consoles of the third generation- ColecoVision, Atari 5200, Arcadia 2001, and even the Vectrex as far as vector games went- could hope to reproduce the most technically advanced arcade games, and After Burner proved this was true for the later generations, although the Neo-Geo is a bit tricky here, since the home console WAS the arcade machine.


However, home consoles do have the overwhelming advantage of bringing home arcade-STYLE games you won't see in an arcade. Miner 2049er, Oil's Well, Steamroller, and Nova Blast are a few examples. So if you go beyond technical and consider innovation, home consoles will usually equal the arcade. Hell, Daniel Bienvenu successfully brought Bejeweled to the ColecoVision, as Kevin Horton did with Kevtris (Tetris).

[Gentlegamer]

On the contrary, look at Castlevania on the NES - it's a carbon copy of the arcade game. So using that as the example, one could easily say that the NES era was on equal ground with the home consoles.

The Castlevania arcade was the VS. version, which WAS the NES version in a arcade cab.

[Arcade Antics]

The Castlevania arcade was the VS. version, which WAS the NES version in a arcade cab.

Yes, they're the same, that was the point. But to be fair, the Vs. system isn't the same as the Playchoice system, which actually is identical NES stuff in a cabinet.