Multicades in public

armi0024

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So I know this has been discussed before, but it's really starting to blow my mind. There is a company here in Oahu called Aloha Rick's. They have 48 in 1's in every hotel, several pizza places, restaurants etc. The cabs are beat to hell, with old marquee's turned around and a paper multicade sign over the back of the old marquee, then they take the pages out of the manual and stick them behind the bezel on either side of the screen. I would think that if it wasn't even for copyright infringement, Namco and Nintendo would crack down just because the machines are atrocious!

What's amazing is that I'm up to having counted over a dozen of these machines, basically every location I've looked at that has machines, has multicades by this guy.
 
I know of many out in public. I think I even saw one in a picture at the Disneyworld arcade. There is no real arcade police.
 
theres more multicades than legit games around here
 
It just seems weird to me, it's such a huge risk for a large company to do this. I can imagine putting one or two in, but in every hotel in a place that has a constant stream of high end executive tourists from many companies that might have financial interest in those games? What I think is really weird, is why don't these companies get together like the drug companies and generate both the name brand and the generic, that way they make money on both...
 
I would think that since the companies don't make money off games more than a few years old, they aren't going to care. If people were knocking off the big money makers that cost $10000 from the factory, the companies would kill these guys.

Other than some anniversary boards/cabs, most of the classics haven't brought in $$ for decades.
 
namco

Putting out junk looking cabinets has always been bad for business. People always second guess about putting money into something that looks crappy.will it steal my money? Will the joystick and buttons work? Etc....
Namco, a company that sells games that are priced way up there and then in some areas in the country go in and put their own game room into locations that you just got booted out including games that you just bought from namco.
Two bit score getting the license to sell namco items, so then nobody else can, so the prices go way up.
I am not feeling sorry for namco they screwed enough people, now it is time for them to take it up the tail pipe.

God bless.
 
I went to a Italian Beef place in Lake in the Hills, IL over Thanksgiving and they had a Ms. Pac with a 48 in 1 in it. I couldn't believe my eyes!! Then I put a quarter in it and played Galaga. The funniest part to me was that they wired the fire 1 and fire 2 to the 1p and 2p buttons, just like I did mine back then. Seemed crazy.
 
There was one at the local community center until very recently (in an Atari Primal Rage cabinet). They are definitely out there.

Scott C.
 
The shop where my wife got two new front tires for her car had a 60-in 1 cocktail set on free play in the lobby.
 
I agree that crap begets crap, The games at these locations look more like someone needed to store their old stuff and ran out of wharehouse space so they put cabinets they didn't want to trash in nice hotels. I should start taking pictures and posting, it's amazing.
 
Operating bootlegs used to be a very scary thing to do (late 80's to mid 90's). Back then distributors/manufactures had lots of legal power and cound put the screws to an operator in a heartbeat. These days theres just not enough interest to bother with them. I still wont do it but some Ops just dont seem to care.

Matt
 
Operating bootlegs used to be a very scary thing to do (late 80's to mid 90's). Back then distributors/manufactures had lots of legal power and cound put the screws to an operator in a heartbeat. These days theres just not enough interest to bother with them. I still wont do it but some Ops just dont seem to care.

Matt

Ah yes... PARALLELS! i remember them back in the day...
 
Ah yes... PARALLELS! i remember them back in the day...

Yup, that was a fine line we walked. The OP I worked for eventually gave in and started operating parallels but only in really small numbers.

I wont touch the non-legit multi's in our game rooms. Were too high profile and I'm sure the likes of Namco, Sega, Konami and whats left of WMS/Atari would come after us.

Matt
 
See that's the funny thing, It's not like these guys are "HUGE" but the only real arcade left in Waikiki and almost every hotel game room is operated by Aloha Rick's. As well as every bowling alley and a bunch of pizza restaurants. And they have a crappy dynamo cab with multi in each. It's just amazing to me that they would be so carefree about it. and I can't imagine they are making too much because they look horrible, I have never seen anyone playing them.
 
Where I live, pretty much any business that still has an arcade machine has a multicade board running in one of them.
 
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