During the PlayStation One era, Namco established itself as one of the most successful video game publishers in the world, releasing a string of fantastic conversions based on its arcade masterpieces — helped along, of course, by the creation of the System 11 arcade board.
However, as the former Namco US product manager Jerry Momoda recently claimed in an exclusive interview with Time Extension, this close partnership with Sony also acted as a bit of "a double-edged sword", closing the gap between home consoles and the arcade and making it harder for players to justify pouring quarters into a machine they already felt they owned at home.
This effectively killed Namco's arcade business, Momoda claims:
"I saw coin-ops impending doom soon after the first Tekken. Namco partnered with Sony in the development of System 11. Without Sony, System 11 would not have been as good. And without Namco, the PlayStation would not have been adopted as fast by players. Several Namco coin-op games became PS launch titles. Arcades were the proving ground. But consoles were where the really big money was made.
"This symbiotic relationship proved to be a double-edged sword for Namco. While Namco produced successful coin-op games on this hardware, it proved arcade-quality games would be available for the home. For years, the best hardware and best games were clearly at the arcade. The Sega and Nintendo home systems could not compete with constantly evolving arcade hardware. Once I saw the PlayStation was the equal to System 11, I knew coin-ops long reign was over."
In response, Namco tried a desperate tactic to keep its arcade business alive. That tactic, according to Momoda, was for the company to switch to creating more experiential types of games — ones that couldn't necessarily be reproduced at home on a console. Titles like Prop Cycle, Final Furlong, and Alpine Racer.
About these kinds of games, Momoda recalled:
"The only card we could play was to create game experiences that couldn’t be duplicated at home. I provided concepts for games that were more location-based. During the time of early Tekken, I provided a concept that lent itself to what eventually became Time Crisis. Our location-based games had special controls and cabinet configurations with seats that could only be played in the arcade.
"One such game was called Prop Cycle. Players controlled a turn-of-the-century, self-propelled glider by pedalling. It was so unique and to this day, I'm still disappointed that more wasn’t done with a game like that. It was very creative and way ahead of its time. Exercise could add to a player’s sense of moment-to-moment action, but game players aren’t necessarily athletes. We also developed two snow-based games, Alpine Racer (skiing) and Alpine Surfer (snowboarding) that were successful. Tokyo Wars, Speed Racer, Final Furlong, and Rapid River were less so."
Despite Namco's attempt to carve out a niche, the coin-op business struggled to justify itself against the more profitable console market, and Momoda himself was laid off (alongside many others) following a decline in the company's arcade sales and an internal restructuring.
This tactical retreat from the arcade market represented a true end of an era for the company, and shocked members of the Tekken team who had worked with Momoda over the past few years and acknowledged his incredible contribution to the series:
"I remember the Tekken team being shocked that something like that could happen because I was important to the Tekken project. It was Namco’s most successful franchise. But, you know, that’s the way of the world. That’s business. I’m proud that with Tekken 1, 2, and 3, company revenues doubled for three consecutive years and unit sales volume grew eight-fold over four years. I’m not sure if it still holds true, but not long ago Tekken was the most successful fighting game in history."
If you're interested in finding out more about Momoda, you can read the rest of our interview with him here. There you will find out more information about his remarkable involvement in launching the Tekken series in the US.
[source News: Interview: "It’s Rare That You Can Identify A Winner" - How Namco Brought Tekken To The West]
Comments 10
@JackGYarwood In the second image on this page after the first two paragraph there is an image with this caption: “Alpine Racer, released in 1994, featured a handlebar controller with rotating foot pedals to emulate real skis”
Yet the image shown is of the Prop Cycle cabinet. I’m just wondering if this is an error or if you are just using that image ‘cuz it’s the only one available and Prop Cycle had the same control mechanism?
@Diogmites Cheers for flagging! I switched the image and forgot to change the caption. Fixed now.
@JackGYarwood Thank you! Love your articles!
What an awful looking game. I was wondering why I'd never heard of a game giving off ghibli vibes like this, and it's because it looks like superman 64.
Oh man! I remember Prop Cycle and Alpine Racer!
I loved Prop Cycle, and I would play each time I saw one in the late nineties. I could never get all the rings though.
Prop cycle was great used to play it in an arcade in Blackpool they also had final furlong which was a lot of fun as well
Namco definitely boasted of its PlayStation loyalty.
One 1995 magazine ad for their PS launch lineup said something like "In this console war, it seems one side has gained an unfair advantage. Funny, we thought we were just making games."
Another one, a long informercial from a "very important business man" went over the PS launch games while also running a part about WeaponLord (not on Sony hardware, as I recall) as a "bathroom break" portion. There too, they boasted Sony called Namco because they need "games that suck-janai".
Prop cycle never worked in America because it was easy to destroy. I liked the attract video, the cycle was always fizzucked in half.
For me, Prop Cycle is an absolute classic. I actually bought the same cabinet as the one pictured on that flyer from eBay or somewhere not working, as I’d just moved into my first rented house with my fiancée (how she ever let me get away with that I don’t know). It took four people to carry the various bits inside the house, through the patio doors! I somehow managed to get it working as it was just the huge rear projection TV that was faulty - first by running it off a monitor then I found some place selling parts for the TV and got it mostly working. Trying to calibrate the red, green and blue lamps to converge on the screen was an utter nightmare. It was fun, but impractical having that huge cabinet hanging about, so I sold it a year or two later. Good times!
ah remember those games, would love to play some alpine skier again... And always interesting to see thsat japanese games industry is more mature that lots of gamer think...
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