Arcade Perfect

However, the immense success of SingStar and Guitar Hero prove that the Western market is more receptive to rhythm and music games than most people believed - and who's to say which other genres have also been wrongly dismissed as "too Japanese" over the years?

Most of all, the lessons that can be learned from Japanese arcades relate to how to create an environment that welcomes customers and keeps them coming back. At the simplest level, popular arcades here are well-lit, brightly coloured and welcoming, with comfortable stools, well-maintained machines and clean facilities. Vending machines dispense drinks and ice cream - an extra profit centre, as well as a pleasant facility for customers.

Much cleverer is the introduction of network functionality and persistent systems for arcade games. You can, of course, simply throw a hundred Yen coin into a Guitar Freaks machine and play a few songs - but Konami's e-Amusement system creates a whole new level of compulsion for gamers.

New songs are uploaded across the network to the machines on a regular basis, so they keep up with the charts, and players pick up an inexpensive e-Amusement Pass card, giving them a persistent account that tracks their progress, their worldwide (well, Japan-wide) ranking and their skill levels. Because it's all handled across the network, the e-Amusement pass works on any machine in the country - effectively downloading your account each time you start play on a new machine - and it also works for multiple games, so you can track progress on games as diverse as Drum Mania and Silent Hill Arcade on a single card.

Other systems for bringing players back time and time again are even cleverer. A popular football game here relies on a collectable card system - allowing you to participate in networked games across Japan by moving your cards around on a playing board. Combining the appeal of something like Football Manager with the compulsion of collecting football cards - and an interactive gameplay experience that's quite different to either, of course - it's easy to see how a game like that could work in the West. Similar systems are used for everything from military strategy games through to Gundam battle games.

This, perhaps, is the key lesson - create an environment where players feel comfortable, and then give them a reason to keep coming back. Progression and persistency are the watchwords; as any MMO developer could tell you, if your players feel like they're making headway, and perhaps tomorrow they could achieve something new, they'll be back tomorrow.

The concept of a resurrection of the arcade market - in a markedly different form from its original incarnation - seems especially relevant today, and not just because of the evolution of the gaming demographic in recent years. At a time when there is an increasing recognition that the leisure facilities provided to young people in the UK are shockingly inadequate in many places, especially in the nation's cities, is it unrealistic to think that a revival of arcades as open, social spaces could be presented as part of the solution?

It would, of course, not be easy. Reviving the arcade market could potentially bring huge financial rewards, but would call for investment, innovation and powerful marketing. However, Japan has already created some of the tools - devising systems, if not necessarily games, which would work perfectly well in the West. The first steps have been taken elsewhere; will anyone in the West now embark on the rest of this journey?