Cloud gaming

Ironclad was a decent enough shooting game for the Neo CD. There were also rumours of a MVS arcade release, but to my knowledge, no one actually has ever come forward and claimed to have owned or even seen one. The theory was given some cred when it went up on the Wii's Virtual Console service. This meant that even if it was just the CD version without the loading screens, the game did exist in a ROM-ready state, and could have been slapped onto chips if need be. All this, however, is years past it's expiration date, or is it? While doing some digging into Taito's NESiCAxLive service I noticed that SNK will make a handful of games available. A kind of Xbox Live for arcades, games are stored on servers, and downloaded to networked cabinets. The service launched with BlazBlue II, and will no doubt see most future titles available, like G.Rev's Strania The Stellar Machina. SNK decided to go in another direction, and are throwing old school games like Fatal Fury ONE, Samurai Shodown ONE, and Ironclad up there, in addition to the recent KOF 98 and 2002 remakes. So after years of speculation, a "lost" title will finally see the light of day in an arcade. This is a pretty damn ingenious idea, and a great solution for continued revenue from older titles that may not be financially feasible to physically distribute. I'm pretty sure it costs more to burn Fatal Fury onto ROMs than the game will likely earn. With proper support this NESiCAxLive system could become the commercial answer to MAME, arcade game preservation, while still bringing in income to the companies that made those games. The NESiCAxLive system and line-up will be present in Taito's AOU booth. The games featured will include:

• BLAZBLUE　CONTINUUM SHIFT II
• AQUAPAZZA
• THE KING OF FIGHTERS’ 98 ULTIMATE MATCH FINAL EDITION　for NESiCAxLive
• THE KING OF FIGHTERS 2002 UNLIMITED MATCH　for NESiCAxLive
• Strania ~The Stellar Machina~
  
• Senko no Ronde DUO　for NESiCAxLive
• Exception
• Dragon Dance
  
• SPACE INVADERS　for NESiCAxLive
• Fatal Fury The King Of Fighters
  
• World Heroes
  
• Art Of Fighting
  
• Samurai Shodown
  
• Ironclad
• Puzzle Bobble
  
• THE KING OF FIGHTERS '94
• Metal Slug
  
• Raiden IV　for NESiCAxLive