If you thought the 3-inch Game Gear Micro would be Sega's strangest announcement today, think again. Instead, we pay tribute to the announcement of a strange and somewhat amorphous concept by the company known as "Fog Gaming" that appears to be using inactive arcade machines to distribute a new type of cloud gaming service in Japan.
Details of the initiative are currently rather scarce – the main source for English-language information is a tweet from a Japanese analyst, which emerges from a Japanese blogger's (Google translator) summary of a story in the new print edition of Japan’s Weekly Famitsu magazine. Journalist Zenji Nishikawa teased the story last week as a "big ball" at Wired's unveiling of the first PlayStation 5 details last year, which looks a bit grand for now.
In any case, the "fog gaming" concept seems to be focused on transforming Sega's massive Japanese arcade and slot machine infrastructure into some sort of widespread streaming gaming data center. According to Adam Pratt, an arcade operator who runs the industry website Arcade Heroes, these cabinets – and the decent CPUs and GPUs they contain – are only actively used by gamers in a busy place for maybe eight hours a day. The rest of the time, these computers could deliver streaming game content to home-country players without a huge investment in a Google Stadia-sized data center.
At least in theory.
A unique Japanese idea
This kind of fog computing idea, where work is distributed to edge node devices rather than strong centralized servers, is not exactly new. For example, router manufacturer Cisco has been integrating the concept into its "Internet of Things" devices since at least 2014. In the meantime, IEEE 2018 standardized an open fog computing architecture.
Using otherwise dormant arcade hardware for a purpose that goes beyond the arcade walls is a relatively radical new idea for the gaming industry.
Japan's still robust arcade scene seems to be perfect for this kind of experiment. Sega alone already owns and operates dozens of game centers spread across the country, usually near major population centers. Sega arcade machines can also be found in third-party Japanese game centers.
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My arcade gallery starts with my favorite find of my trips to Japan: DanceRush Stardom. Notice the onscreen display that looks like a Guitar Hero grid of notes …
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This tells you when to put one foot (or two in this case) and how far to the left or right. Otherwise, you can go as far forward or backward as you want. This gives players the opportunity to really dance and dance what they did while playing.
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Since I was quite intimidated by the DanceRush spectacle, I decided to play a similar game with my fingers instead. You'll be asked to tap a touchpad with your fingers to match the notes of Guitar Hero …
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… but its gimmick is an "air action" sensor that prompts you to snap your wrist at the exact moment you are playing drums.
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This game, which had no name in English characters, attracted many spectators in the "bemani" sections of many arcades.
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This Bemani game has a clearer focus on crazy fast piano playing.
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This train conductor cupboard contains beautifully rendered images that are comparable to a high-end computer with Unreal Engine 4.
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However, the gameplay is about driving a legitimate train safely, quickly, efficiently and comfortably. That means no races or crazy things. It is only for train freaks. For your information: 900 yen is around eight dollars, but the pricing structure for this game is somewhat fluid.
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The latest version of Mario Kart for arcades.
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Horse racing simulators are no joke in Japan. However, they are all very dimly lit, so this is the best photo I got. Some of the horse racing play stations contain extravagant set pieces with toy horses on rotors that run on a physical track. I am very, very sad that the photos I took of them did not come out.
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Shortly after taking this picture of a paid VR arcade kiosk, an employee stared at me and shook my head. Nobody else cared about arcade photos I had taken; only the VR station handlers. Ah great.
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This new "physical" version of Pong was recently introduced in Japanese arcades. The ball and paddles are plastic parts and their movements have an uncanny resemblance to the movement of video games.
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Unfortunately, the delay between the trackball turns and the movement of your paddle is so delayed that it becomes a pain in the butt. But it's fun to see.
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An obvious video game as part of the Valkyria Chronicles series.
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I just liked this thin ship's bike as a controller.
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Interior of the elaborate video arcade. Gundam Extreme Versus Maxi On.
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A multiplayer arcade version of Bomberman with female recording.
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You might have expected this poster for Bombergirl to have scantily clad comic ladies, but this was a surprising example of a tasteful female representation in a Japanese arcade. (Most Japanese arcade games contain bright, colorful cardboard posters.)
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Card games are everywhere in Japanese arcades. Here is an unattended soccer game …
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… and this is how the NFC-enabled "table" screen looks with a full deck. One user was generous enough to allow me to give a detailed overview between his sessions as "manager" of the soccer team, drawing and rearranging cards to teach AI-controlled characters where to go and how to play.
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Another card game in which players manage armies by moving cards around a screen.
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A closer look at this machine.
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I haven't seen anyone play this 2 year old Pokemon game that requires plastic discs that contain Pokemon characters (which can be further developed and trained through use in replay sessions).
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Despite tens of millions of arcade games that require cards to run, I struggled to find real card machines for these games in Arcades. I swear I looked. Here's one of only two I've seen.
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I never found out what these Paseli cards are about. And the disproportionate comic lady nearby wasn't talking.
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As an American who grew up near a BattleMech arcade center, I envy Japanese children who still get networked Battle Pod arcade games to this day.
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All I could find out when I watched other people play was that the game lasts forever and never ceases to feel slow.
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On the way out of an Akihabara arcade, these fantastic posters appeared, stuck to a dreary wall. There is a lot of this "cartoon art on dreary wall" stuff in Japan.
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See: Natsuge Museum, the best (and slightly smallest) arcade in all of Akihabara. It's packed with classic Capcom, Sega, and Konami cabinets, including some classics that never made it in the U.S.
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A closer look at this Super Hang-On bike machine.
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The current mainstay of the room: a fully functional, riveted Thunder Blade cabinet. (The Natsuge Museum changes its selection regularly, so I was glad to see it.)
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Sit in this chair, step on the gas and hold on forever.
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It's hard to convey photos, but this chair weaves and wobbles as you fly through the game, and the feel is hair-raising.
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In addition, the original speakers of the case have been significantly improved to trigger a huge turmoil.
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The other Sega racing classics in the room feel a bit weak. (Just kidding. These tear too.)
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The Natsuge Museum is proud to use only original hardware and circuit boards for its playable games. I got a fantastic view of how the Natsuge sausage is made when a machine fails in the middle of the session. Yes, that was a live fix, and the game story nerd inside me started drooling.
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Do you notice these gray sleeves on the cabinets?
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Interior of the elaborate video arcade.
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Some of these cabinets had stools to sit on, loaded with subwoofers. As a result, playing this classic Capcom beat & # 39; em-ups felt like I was in the middle of an earthquake.
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Such delicious, classic cabinets, all lined up appropriately.
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What a beauty.
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A closer look at some of these cocktail cabins in the middle of the room.
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Old arcade poster, original art top left.
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Our view of Natsuge concludes with game size signatures.
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Off to another legendary arcade, Mikado, down the street from my hotel. The upper floor comprised a series of fighting games. (I was almost a week away from this place before seeing Brian Ashcraft's recommendation for Kotaku.)
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This was perhaps a fifth of the selection on this fighting field alone.
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Dig on these buttons.
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One corner was dedicated to the turn of the century arcade wrestling games. One of these kiosks is so legitimate that it contains optional Dreamcast controllers.
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We move to the back of the lower level of this arcade and … what's that in the far right corner?
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A Starblade seat cabinet ?! This may look like an average oversized 80s shooting game cockpit …
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… but inside is the wildest mix of early polygonal graphics and scattered, odd-shaped screens ever seen in an arcade!
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But Namco can't have all the fun here. Here is Sega with POWER DRIFT.
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I get a kick from this racing driver, especially with the crazy hydraulic seat in the Japanese closet. Otherwise, I think the only people who love this game are Sega Saturn apologists.
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Also some classic Sega licensed baseball.
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Japan does not save on its seat cupboards.
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Or its widescreen.
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A few shmups are stacked on the lower level of this arcade.
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A arcade magazine that you can read freely in an arcade? I love Japan.
(Above: A look into a modern Japanese game center from our own Sam Machkovech.)
Many Japanese Sega arcade machines are already connected to the Internet through the company's longstanding All.Net platform, which enables online competitions and enables players to track rankings, profiles and high scores across machines across the country. Adjusting this high-speed connection so that the chassis can serve as a low-latency streaming gaming hub would require some work (and possibly an upgrade of the online architecture for the Game Center itself). But it hardly seems impossible.
Japan is already relatively optimistic about streaming gaming as a concept. Back in 2018, Capcom released a streaming version of Resident Evil 7 for playing on Japanese Nintendo Switch hardware that would otherwise have had problems running the game. A year later, a streaming version of Assassin's Creed Odyssey was released. And at the beginning of 2020, Square Enix spoke prominently about a new focus on "cloud-native or cloud-centered titles".
A savior of the arcade business?
Aside from technical and cultural compatibility, the Fog gaming concept could be a business line for arcades and slot machine manufacturers struggling under the quarantine rules for corona viruses. "A contact I have in Japan told me that (All.Net) bombed the pandemic," Pratt told Ars Technica. "Only a few locations outside of Sega's own have already used it and now they are dropping it … because the fees make it untenable."
"If this allows Arcades to deliver Arcade content in a closed state, it could be a good lifesaver for Sega and the (operator)," continued Pratt. "If it is to help operators and at reasonable costs, it could be a great solution to generate revenue when closed, which is still a problem for so many in the business … if Ops don't get a piece of it." Payment pie, but they won't touch it. "
There are still many unanswered questions regarding technical, economic, and even game selection issues related to fog games. The concept currently appears to be in Sega's research and development phase. So it may take a while for it to be introduced in Japanese arcades. After that, it is unlikely that it is a major initiative in the west, where online-capable arcade machines are far too sparsely distributed to really implement the concept.
However, the fog gaming currently described is already one of the most fascinating ideas we've heard from the Japanese arcade industry for years. We will be watching with interest whether Sega can get it going in the coming months.
