Yeah, it gets really exciting when you realize you can buy arcade games to play at home. A whole new dimension of gaming suddenly opens up -- ports and emulation notwithstanding. I plan to write a detailed guide on this subject eventually, but I might as well help you out here and set down some stuff that I can use later.
PART #1
From
Wikipedia:
Printed circuit boards, or PCBs, are used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, or traces, etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate.
In layman's terms, a PCB is a usually green piece of plastic that carries a lot of complex-looking electronics stuff. Your computer's motherboard is a PCB, for example, and so are your graphics and sound cards.
Now many arcade games, though not all, are sold as PCBs. This means that the hardware powering the game (processors, specialized chips, memory, etc.) is physically bolted onto the same board as the game ROM itself -- in contrast to consoles for example, where hardware and games come separately.
Scroll to the bottom of the page below for a pic of a typical, modern arcade PCB (in this case, of Cave's Mushihime-sama):
http://www.world-of-arcades.net/Cave/Ha ... rdware.htm
And here is the complete kit:
http://www.world-of-arcades.net/Cave/Mu ... ma_Kit.jpg
(you have to click in your browser's address bar and press enter to see this image, because the site has protection from hotlinking)
Now PCBs of new games are very expensive, with initial prices often exceeding 200,000 yen. However, prices invariably drop straight down soon after release, sometimes even halving within a couple of months. After that initial drop prices usually keep falling until they hit some low mark, and afterwards fluctuate according to various factors: popularity, print run, availabilty of port(s), etc.
To give you a rough idea, R-Type (1987) goes for around 10,000 yen these days, Arcana Heart (2006) for 60,000 (though the recent upgrade, Arcana Heart Full, is still quite expensive at around 130,000), and Espgaluda II (2005) can be had for around 50,000 if I am not mistaken.
The upshot is that, as long as you can temper your enthusiasm and let the game centers and the really rich guys suck down the initial price hit, you can keep buying and selling PCBs, playing all the unported arcade games with minimal investment (in fact, if you develop a good sense for the way prices fluctuate you can even turn a profit).
As for how you actually get to play these games, there are two options: arcade cabinets (or "cabs") and Superguns.
To be continued... in the meantime check the following links, do some research on your own (and report any interesting pages you find) and ask away if you have any questions.
Further reading
http://www.gamesx.com/arcade/primer.htm
http://www.gamesx.com/arcade/home.htm
http://www.gamesx.com/rgbadd/caveatrgb.htm
http://insomnia.ac/japan/mak_japan_and_g-front/
http://nfggames.com/neography/pivot/ent ... =nfg_games
Stores
http://www.fujitacommunications.com/
http://www.mak-jp.com/
http://www.gfront.com/
http://www.excellentcom.net/