Hm, I was hoping to do a Gamasutra post about 'The State Of Japanese Arcades' today, but it's late, and honestly, I don't have a great deal of amazing insight, other than 'the Japanese love their arcade games, music, fighting, and networked CCG games are big, and there are some damn cool arcades out there', heh.

So how about I just split it out and show you some more pictures I've been taking of the myriad of arcades here in Tokyo this week? Some of this stuff is pretty standard, but hopefully you won't mind:

Sure, it's pretty standard and has even turned up in U.S. arcades, but who doesn't like seeing Namco/Nintendo's Mario Kart GP in arcades? Home conversion plz!


One of the craziest marquees of all time, I think for a sequel to the Bishi Bashi Special series, judging by the controller setup?


Well, Virtua Fighter 5 is certainly good-looking, but the interesting hook isn't just the single-player arcade machine.


Yep, this is the really interesting part - VF.TV, which was showing a network-transmitted Virtua Fighter 5 match from other sparring arcade participants elsewhere in Japan.


Dude - let's drum. Taiko No Tatsujin times infinity! Or about four, at least.