Why didn't they make real arcade hardware for the home?

[Rybags]

Vectrex was a standalone design - even the 6809 wasn't very common in arcades, Williams probably the largest base there.

[Keatah]

The Astrocade seemed to be the moodiest and darkest most arcade like of all the 1st and 2nd generation consoles. Despite later consoles having higher resolution and more colors they still felt like home systems; they didn't even come close. I think the sound characteristics had a lot to do with it too. I always liked the subtle "logic noise" that contaminated the audio output. A tone. A buzzing, hissing. The NTSC interference. Many arcade machines, and especially the Vectrex, would do this. Other consoles to a lesser extent.

 

Not typically noticed by most gamers, to me it was important. And emulators don't do any of this and that really pisses me off!

[Video]

Neo Geo?

 

To be honest, most arcade games are one off pieces of hardware, back then (especially the 70-80's) you wouldn't have been able to make a home console based off of arcade hardware because it would only play one (or maybe two) games.

 

I'm sure there are other multi arcade units out there, but the early one I remember that had any real pull was neogeo, and they did make a home version of that.

 

IIRC Atari made an arcade version of the jaguar, of course, that's the opposite direction but Also I think 3DO was an arcade, but I won't swear.

[The Usotsuki]

I think Tengen did use modified Jaguar hardware for...Area 51? Don't quote me.

[Rex Dart]

Sega Genesis is kind of a stripped-down System 16 rig, designed for playing adapted arcade titles. I think that's pretty close.

[Osgeld]

sega NAOMI arcade hardware is based on dreamcast though they stacked the arcade with a pile of ram (for the time), in fairness sega arcade games usually had gigantic monitors RIGHT IN YOUR FACE so the extra resolution was needed

[RodLightning]

I think Tengen did use modified Jaguar hardware for...Area 51? Don't quote me.

Oops, just quoted you...

 

Don't forget the other cojag game, Maximum Force. The 'co' in cojag stood for coin-op.

[The Usotsuki]

So I did remember correctly. =P

[Reaperman]

sega NAOMI arcade hardware is based on dreamcast though they stacked the arcade with a pile of ram (for the time), in fairness sega arcade games usually had gigantic monitors RIGHT IN YOUR FACE so the extra resolution was needed

That and also Atomiswave--but if we start counting the consoles that had arcade hardware generally based on them, or the other way around, then pretty much every system would qualify. Nes, SNES, genesis, ps1, saturn. Granted a couple in that list tended toward 'console experience in the arcade' instead of the other way around.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Reaperman

[CatPix]

Well wasn't the PlayChoice just a NES with RGB out in an arcade?

 

I think I read that some Italian arcade maker fitted 3DO's in an arcade cabinet.

[Petran79]

also the Sharp X68000 computer in Japan was used to develop CPS1 arcade games, hence CPS1 arcade ports were also very faithfull

[cdoty]

Why didn't they make real arcade hardware for the home? I mean why didn't they take an actual arcade board from a machine and shrink it down a little and build a system around that?

 

The Sega Genesis and Master System were based on arcade hardware. Starting with the Playstation, Saturn, and N-64, the reverse happened... arcade system were based on home consoles.

[Nebulon]

Vectrex was a standalone design - even the 6809 wasn't very common in arcades, Williams probably the largest base there.

Lots of arcade games used the 6809.

 

And the controller on the Vectrex is almost exactly the same as the one on Tailgunner.

[mehguy]

Why didn't they make real arcade hardware for the home? I mean why didn't they take an actual arcade board from a machine and shrink it down a little and build a system around that?

 

 

 

they already did that.

 

 

 

Neo geo was the same hardware as the arcade but was 600 dollars for the system alone and games were around 200 dollars each.

[Shinju]

Dollars bro's it was all about dollars and people wanted cheap and now. The cost of those chipsets and boards were not cheap. That's why Neo Geo was ungodly expensive!

[CatPix]

It's not that peopel wanted cheap systems... it's that the price for one arcade card was over the board. Just an example, the 1971 Space war arcade game cost about 10 000$ to make. And that's 1970 dollars, not actual ones.

 

Even in the 80's, any console wanting to replicate the arcade experience would cost at least 5 times more than any console of the time.

[+FujiSkunk]

What do you define as "arcade hardware"? Just about every console released, Atari 2600 included, was perfectly capable of recreating some arcade game or another, and often was built from parts that were used in arcade games. Cases in point (some of which have already been mentioned):

 

• The Atari 2600 plays a mean Pong, and uses a derivative of the CPU found in many of Atari's arcade games.

   

• The Atari home computers and the Atari 5200 use the same CPU and sound chip found in arcade games like Centipede and Tempest.

   

• The ColecoVision uses the Z80 CPU, also popular in arcade games of the day.

   

• The Nintendo Entertainment System's hardware is very similar to that used in Nintendo's "Vs." line of arcade games.

   

• The Atari Jaguar's hardware was repurposed into the COJAG arcade standard, used in Area 51 and Maximum Force among other arcade games.

   

• The Sega Dreamcast hardware was repurposed into the NAOMI arcade standard. Capcom, Namco and Taito, among others, made many NAOMI-based arcade games.

   

• The Sony PlayStation 2 was used to create Namco's System 246 arcade standard. Ridge Racer V and Tekken 4 are System 246 games.

 

The Neo*Geo was the first system that advertised itself as bringing arcade technology home, but as you can see, every console brought some form of the arcade experience home.

 

Also, from Enter Magazine, issue #3 (December/January 1983):

 

DEAR ENTER: Why aren't the video games on Atari, ColecoVision, and Intellivision exactly like the arcade games you have to put a
quarter in? —Cheryl Jordan, New York, NY

DEAR CHERYL: Your question is really about the difference in the way arcade and home videogames are designed. A coin-operated arcade game machine is made to play just one game, and to display it with as much pizzazz as possible. In contrast, most home video game systems use cartridges. Each cartridge is a different game and the home machine must be able to play all of them, This means the home machine can't always include all the special features of each independent arcade machine. Also, coin-ops use special graphics monitors that yield a better, more detailed picture than any home television set can. They also use stereo sound and expensive sound effects.

Designers of home video games tell me that they could make a home video game as good as a coin-op. But, they wonder, who would pay several thousand dollars for it?

[Keatah]

It's not that peopel wanted cheap systems... it's that the price for one arcade card was over the board. Just an example, the 1971 Space war arcade game cost about 10 000$ to make. And that's 1970 dollars, not actual ones.

 

Even in the 80's, any console wanting to replicate the arcade experience would cost at least 5 times more than any console of the time.

 

Would that be the entire game from concept-on-paper to finished product leaving on the truck? Or just the logic board and materials? Because if so, that's piss in the pool compared to today's multi-billion dollar productions and brand licensing and franchises.

[Lost Dragon]

Probably mentioned this before, but there was a claim in UK magazine, ACE, that DATAEAST were entering the home console market with hardware based around their coin-op boards and it'd be more powerful than the SNES etc, most advanced home system out there etc.

Given this was the 1 and only time this claim surfaced, i'd say UK press got things very wrong, yet again, sadly.

[CatPix]

Would that be the entire game from concept-on-paper to finished product leaving on the truck? Or just the logic board and materials? Because if so, that's piss in the pool compared to today's multi-billion dollar productions and brand licensing and franchises.

Times are different. And if I remember righ,t that was the electronics (computer war was made of a PDP11 computer, not logic gates).

So that would be an irreductible hardware cost.

 

Logic gates were not even so much cheaper at the time. I recall an interview of Pierre Tel ( a French maker of arcade machines that worked fro mthe late 70's to the 90's) which said that chips of the time were costly because they were highly prone to fail, leading to high testing costs.

 

And video games were a novelty. Remember that before the 83 krach and the NES, people believed that video gaming was to be a fashio that would fade and get replaced by computers, so who would try to sell a 10 000$ or even a 5 000$ machine when they though the market model would fail in the next years? (which is kinda did)

[Rex Dart]

 

The Sega Genesis and Master System were based on arcade hardware. Starting with the Playstation, Saturn, and N-64, the reverse happened... arcade system were based on home consoles.

 

 

You win the thread. Too many people getting the concept backwards & listing home machines-turned-arcade.

[mbd30]

Home video game consoles were usually something that parents bought for their kids. Think of how expensive even the existing consoles were for the time, and arcade quality hardware would have been much more so. The average parents might spend a lot for a computer but not for a toy that hooks up to a TV.