[AnimeGamer]

exA-Arcadia Arcades Finally Get a much-needed Upgrade!!!!

Figure 1. exA-Arcadia

Arcades, the once mighty and highly coveted gaming medium has fallen from its lofty heights with the advent of home consoles, the internet, and most damaging of all affordable PC gaming. Yet it only seems like it was yesterday as most of the media was warning kids and parents about the harmful effects of arcades and how they will lead to the collapse of society. Well to be accurate it is not like the media ever stopped, but it did lead to the early abandonment of arcades. Had it not been for the Japanese arcades and Japan’s inherent love for the arcades we could have lost one of the most influential eras of gaming. But now the tides are once again changing as we see the utter collapse of AAA studios and the rise of indie and retro gaming. This new boom has also resulted in reigniting passion for arcades and retro games, but aside from Sega and to a certain extent Capcom many developers had abandoned arcades since the 90s. That is where exA-Arcadia comes into play as they have not only rejuvenated the arcade scene with some of the best advancements to the medium since 32-bit graphics, but they have also started to develop in-house arcade games specifically for their arcade units.

Figure 2. exA-Arcadia System Platform

Since its first physical release in 2019, the exA-Arcadia platform has managed to do the impossible by revolutionizing the arcade industry which was stuck in a state of stagnation for the last 30 years. How? You ask. Simple, they targeted the most complained factors in the Japanese arcades and upscaled from there. One of the most groundbreaking aspects they introduced to the current monetization industry was a one-time payment for the platform, this removed licensing and subscription issues from the whole arrangement. And whether they knew it or not they also managed to remove the online requirement which was a major complaint of arcade owners and developers. Developers were also happy with the system as it could support many of the most popular game engines such as Unity and Unreal.

Figure 3. Axel City 2

Sadly, while the launch was successful as the sales indicated, the system was far from perfect at launch but that is where the dedication of the dev team came into the picture. They not only managed to fix the majority of the bugs in the initial launch period, but they have also supported the system and games to this date. With one of the most major updates regarding lag and input time, has finally been made public and the difference is night and day. Lag has been eliminated and the input time has been reduced to meniscal timings meaning now you can’t blame losing in an Axel City 2 or AKA & BLUE TYPE-R on the controls. Alongside these updates, the system has also been updated to support more resolutions and boot times have also seen a major boost in speed with the new file system.

Figure 4. AKA & Blue Type R

To conclude, it should be mentioned that the exA-Arcadia system, while having seen major updates and improvements, still needs more work done on it so that it can one day stand toe to toe with the systems that led to its downfall. But until then retro gamers can rejoice in the return of true arcade experiences and hopefully, this might be able to change the current course of the gaming industry.



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