Full Circle, Square, Triangle, X

An observation:

From the seventies to early nineties, video arcades were a common sight in western malls and shopping areas. It was a great opportunity to play unique games with guns, mallets, footpads, steering wheels and other interactive controls.

Then the nineties rolled on and the arcades slowly disappeared as home consoles got better and better. Nowadays they've pretty much vanished besides the few aging machines occasionally at the cinemas. Japan still has an arcade culture, but it seems to be more for prodigious rhythm game players, people gambling on virtual horse races, and those who find it amusing to jam plastic fingers into asses.

After the arcades died a strange thing occurred, home consoles began offering odd game accessories and add-ons like guns, bongos, dance mats, maracas, cameras, etc. This trend actually started long before arcades went away, but it only intensified at the turn of the millennium. In the last five years we've seen the birth and rise of the Nintendo Wii, Guitar Hero, and Rock band which have caused gamers to jump around their living rooms with plastic instruments or swing their arms wildly with motion controllers.

The age of the peripheral is reaching critical mass as people are seriously running out of room for fake drum sets. Now with the announcement of two more motion control systems at E3, and the marketing of Tony Hawk's motion-sensing skateboard or DJ Hero's turntable controller, the picture is clear. Once we went to the arcade to try something new and play in very physical ways, but now that experience happens in our own living rooms. Shooters with guns, music with instruments, and sports with physical movement.

The arcade has been reborn ... in every home that is willing to collect these devices. The only difference is that we used to pay a handful of quarters to jump around like a moron, and now it's costing us hundreds of dollars.