Arcade Cabinets – A Look Back (1996)

Satoshi Tajiri - President of Game Freak. Known as the game designer of titles such as Mario and Wario and Quinty. He is also the published author of Pacland de Tsukamaete ("A Catcher in Pac-Land").

Riko Kushida - A freelance editor primarily known for her writing about video games. Recently, she has served as supervising editor for the "TV Game Classics" exhibition, as well as appearing as a personality on Nintendo's Game Tora no Ooana broadcast on the Satellaview service.

―I think one of the main attractions of arcade games is the design and gimmicks of large cabinets. Tajiri, how do you see the progression of arcade cabinets up to now?

Tajiri: In Japan, I think the origin of arcade cabinet design is found in the wooden horse machines you would find on rooftop department stores. Even Namco was making mechanical wooden horses during the Nakamura Seisakusho era. However, in terms of arcade games, for a long time the mainstream in Japan was the table-type game where players sat down to play, and in parallel with that, as a means of creating a more authentic atmosphere, Japan also designed submarine games, target practice games, and driving games with steering wheels.

―Yeah, and when you look at a famous taikan game like Hang On, you can see they were striving for the same things then.

Tajiri: At the time, Japan had just revised the Entertainment Establishments Control Law, and the industry as a whole was in a depressed mood. Meanwhile, the quality of home video game consoles was rising, and I think there was a sense of crisis on the arcade game side, a feeling that they needed to differentiate themselves from consumers at all costs.

―And that's when Hang On came out.

Tajiri: To be honest, when I first saw it, I was more relieved than excited. I thought, "Ok good, arcade games are saved." Although the Hang On cabinet could rock back and forth as you shifted your weight, this was mostly an extension of the joystick concept; it was fundamentally different from the later taikan arcade cabinets like Space Harrier, in which the cabinet moves the player in sync with the gameplay, giving a true immersive full-body experience.

―Yeah, that was a major upgrade. Space Harrier had the seat that moved with your joystick controls.

Tajiri: One of the best things about the Space Harrier cabinet was the seat belts. Putting aside whether that was necessary or not, I believe that the goal of Space Harrier was to be a full-fledged simulator, something that would feel distinctly different from the simple "games" of the past. Enter the seat belt. I don't think anyone would actually fall off that seat while playing, (laughs) but when you sit down and put on the belt before playing, it makes you feel like, "whoa, this is the real thing." It's really a small-but-excellent detail of the game's presentation. And this too is an important part of game design.

―These "simulator" aspirations would later give rise to taikan games with full cockpits.

Tajiri: Yeah, and originally they were planning for the player in Space Harrier to be a fighter jet… you know, if they'd had that idea from the beginning (instead of the running man it became), then who knows, maybe they never would have thought of adding the seatbelt.

―Are there any epoch-making cabinets after Space Harrier?

Tajiri: Maybe Midnight Landing, which is also a cockpit-type cabinet. It was pitch black inside the Midnight Landing cockpit.

―Right. You could be in a noisy, crowded game center, but when you stepped inside that cabinet, you were suddenly thrust into this whole other world.

Tajiri: Yeah, exactly. Most of the taikan games up to that point were heavy on the gimmicks, but they were a bit lacking in ideas that would enhance the overall atmosphere and environment of the game itself. With Midnight Landing, the stated goal is to properly land your airplane, but I don't think that's everything. Another important factor to its novelty, I think, was re-creating the feeling of a night-time flight and allowing players to enjoy that experience.

―You could say that what's directly on-screen isn't the only important factor anymore.

Tajiri: I would say that the pinnacle of the "moving seat" style of arcade cabinet is the R-360. But yeah, with a cabinet like that, chasing high scores seems a bit less meaningful. In that sense, we may be returning little by little to the wooden horse-like feeling that was the origin of the whole taikan cabinet design.

―Kushida, in our regular column you told us about wanting to play Super Hang On so badly that you forsook your beloved miniskirt and went out in normal shorts. Do you have any other interesting personal anecdotes to share involving arcade games?

Kushida: Pole Position would be one, for sure. I loved that game, and back then I would go all over town searching for a store that had a Pole Position cabinet with the full cockpit. But even when I found one, there would always be a boy or group of boys dominating the cabinet and I would never get to play. I reallyyyy wanted to play it though so I would venture to these places way out in the boonies… well, I was a kid, so maybe it wasn't that far off in reality, but still. Anyway, after all that searching, I'd look into the window and see the Pole Position cabinet there, and it was like, "Yes! Finally!" But when I got closer I'd find an entirely different game installed in the cabinet…!

―A different game?

Kushida: Yeah, back then there were a lot of bootleg knockoffs.

―Ah, right. There were tons of those circulating then, especially for popular games.

Kushida: The Pole Position taikan cabinet was very well constructed for its time, so many games that were sold to operators later would be bundled with that cabinet as a set. They didn't spare any expense in making it.

―Before the sit-down tabletop style arcade cabinets took over, there were lots of "specialty" one-off cabinet designs, and not just for driving games.

Kushida: Yeah. Even Space Invaders, the first generation of cabinets didn't use a joystick lever, but instead had two buttons to move left or right. There were lots of upright (standing) cabinets too.

―I remember that Space Invaders cabinet having a bizarrely realistic alien drawn on it, too.

Kushida: I don't know if I'd call it realistic, but it was definitely scary! (laughs) You could say this about other media besides games too, but before the orthodox style set in, there were all these fun, adventurous experiments.

―There were some "out there" cabinet designs as well.

Kushida: The one that comes to mind first for me is Tatsumi's 1983 racing game TX-1. I believe they were developing a TX-2, which I think they showed at the AM Show, but it looks like it ultimately never came out. What a shame. When I first sat in the TX-1 cabinet, and saw those triple monitors it made a big impact.

―When one considers that Namco later came out with Driver's Eyes in 1991, you could say TX-1 was quite ahead of its time. Its actual quality as a game notwithstanding.

Kushida: There was also Taito's shooting game Wyvern F-0. It used half-mirrors to connect two screens. In vertical orientation, too.

―Vertical, wow... Taito released many ambitious projects like that, didn't they. There's others too. Do you remember Continental Circus?

Kushida: Yeah, the one with the 3D glasses. Unfortunately the previous players' sweat would be stuck on the glasses, and when I felt that I'd immediately lose interest in playing.

―What do you think of Darius?

Kushida: I liked it. I remember how when you clear a stage, your ship would go "zoom!" all the way across the screen.

―I remember that. Pzzup!

Kushida: When you played Darius a crowd would gather around you to watch, I loved that. I would have liked to see Taito use that cabinet design and develop more games for it.

You know, nowadays there are very few 24-hour establishments left. But I know this one place next to a billiards hall, a real gem which has somehow cleared the hurdles set by the Amusement Business Regulations. I go there with my internet friends when we're spending the whole night out, and when I get tired, I sleep in the Darius cabinet. It feels great! Whether for sleeping or what-have-you, I hope arcade cabinet developers will make more cabinets with "practical uses" like that!

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