Yeah, BC ferries had good arcades in the '80s and '90s. They had plenty of games you could find elsewhere but also stuff like Shinobi and Aurail which weren’t quite popular enough to be in every arcade.
Interesting topic. Here in Brazil, we had some particularities that you won’t find anywhere else. You may know Brazil as the country of the Master System, the outrageous import prices and rampant piracy. But we were SO much more than that.
80’s - We had some Atari clones. MSX hardware was officially released in here, but software were scarce. NES clones then became commonplace, and you could choose even if you wanted a US 72 pin clone or the Japanese 60Pin (or both, look for CCE Top Game for a NES clone with both pin config, I had one of those). And so TECTOY brought the Master System
Officially. It was amazing. Software and accessories were available at retail, true to god warranty, TV and magazine ads, you name it.
90 - TECTOY released the Mega Drive some months after the Genesis launch and it was as good as the Master System, but bootleg software were commonplace and thus didn’t enjoyed the market boom of the MS. SNES were brought over via import shops but it was “your rich friend videogame”. In 95, SNK released the NeoGeo CD over here, since arcades were everywhere at the time. N64 were released officially, and they brought over the SNES, NES and GB over at the same time.
I was making a bigger post, but I’ll leave at that.
Hell, an new official Mega Drive game was released some months ago.
This thread is fascinating. On Long Island we had a few arcades. Coin op machines were in most bowling alleys, laundry mats, diners, supermarkets, and amusement parks. Heck, even my summer camp had a dedicated arcade area which was neat.
Most towns had their share of Funcolands, EB Games, Babbages, KB Toys, and/or Toy-R-Us stores too so you could always shop around for stuff. We also had electronics stores like Best Buy (although that came later), The Wiz, Tops, Circuit City, and PC Richards - all of which carried games and hardware.
I wish I were around in NYC during the 80s and 90s instead of LI to check out the videogame scene here. I’ve heard legends of incredible arcades in the city especially in Times Square.
I friend of mine got the MSX in the 80s (Talent model, the black one with the blue arrow keys). Even though I had the C64, I was in love with the MSX. Knightmare in particular was my obsession. I must’ve spent an entire year going to my friend’s house every single day to play it. I still remember the enemy patterns and secrets by heart.
Arcade machines were banned in my Australian country town from around 1985 to 1990. The council thought they led to riff raff. So while I was very small we saw Space Invaders etc at the burger shop, they disappeared. We got our first arcade in like 1992 after the ban ended.
So it was super great when I went on holidays to places that had arcades. I went to this awesome place called ‘Funland’ that was a veritable museum, they had games from the 70s like Speed Race - black and green only graphics:
through to modern at that time like Daytona. All maintained well despite being up to 20 years old.
Great place. An original Puck Man machine, Contra, Donkey Kong, Wardner, Wonder Boy, After Burner II, all great stuff and I didn’t even realise I was getting a classic gaming history lesson.
That’s brutal.
The Australia/NZ market fascinates me. I used to assume because it was PAL games in English, that it would be very similar to the UK but there are a lot of small differences. When I first bought an Australian Master System game, I noticed how the label is slightly different in design and colour from other regions. It seems the distributor, Ozisoft, manufactured their own stuff. My only exposure to that company back in the day was seeing their name on my pirated copy of A Journey to the Centre of the Earth on C64.
One more thing I remembered about my local area. The major credit union here called Vancity used to loan out Amiga CD32 consoles for online banking. Occasionally I come across one that says “property of Vancity credit union” on it. Considering how rare NTSC CD32s are (they were sold here at EB briefly), I thought it was kind of neat.
Yes Ozisoft assembled Sega games locally, and printed the inserts here in some cases. Package design and even material was all over the place to get prices down. The PCBs were still from Japan at the start, but moved to Taiwan and China after a couple of years. The Master System II is made of the cheapest nastiest plastic possible.
Nintendo was the premium product, everything was up to double the price, but they were all 100% manufactured and printed in Japan and imported whole by Mattel. When you had both in your hands you could tell the difference. But the prices made it hard to swallow for lots of people, especially those used to getting their crappy C64 games on tape for $10 or just pirating.
Hey now, I’m sure some of those $10 C64 games were great ones. But yeah, being a computer gamer in NA in the '80s, NES/SMS game prices felt steep at first here, too. Phantasy Star was the most expensive game on the market here at around $90+ CAD/$70+ US. That was unheard of before, even for cartridge games.
Have you guys checked out Rec Room yet (beside the Steam Whistle brewery, across from the CN Tower/SkyDome)?
It’s pretty cool (and a great tourist location) but definitely falls more into the Dave n’ Busters-style, with an emphasis on redemption games.
They have a Daytona 3 twin-cab, though…
Cone, your writeup on BC Ferries made me super nostalgic for home (Victoria). I used to play so much arcade on the ferry.
I remember for many, MANY years, the Victoria Airport had a Konami Simpsons cab, which got a LOT of play from me and my brother whenever we travelled.