Holländische community Arcade

Ich entschuldige mich, dass dieses Thema in englisch schreibe. Obwohl ich gut Deutsch kann lesen und sprechen ist mein Schreiben Fähigkeit sehr rostig;)

My name is Chris Blok and I'm a part of a Dutch arcade community called Nozomi. In 2009 I stared buidling custom arcade joysticks and in 2011 I started to import Japanese arcade machines as a business.
When the first container of Japanese arcades came in I didn't actually have a lot off room for it but managed to store the machines in my own house. That wasn't really a long term plan so I talked to the guys at Nozomi, who had rented a large warehouse to store their machines, and asked them if it was OK to store some of my machines at their location. In the following years a few more containers came in and I added my machines to their machines to form a bigger and badder community arcade.
We are based in Zoetermeer (near Den Haag) and open the doors to arcade community meetings and events and have done several in the meantime

Here is a list of some machines that are in the main hall lineup:
- Daytona USA 6 player linked. Used to be 8 but Daytona is so delicate to errors
- Gunblade
- Ghost Squad
- Darius Burst EX
- Chabudai Gaeshi (table flipping game)
- 2 Megalo's running mainly fightgames
- Crisis Zone
- Wild Pilots (motion)
- Ninja Assault (shooter)
- Point Blank
- Final Lap (twin)
- GP Rider (twin)
- Neo29, Sega New Astro, Astro, Blast cities, Net City, New Net City running PCB's and other arcade hardware
- The Bishi Bashi
- Air Trix including a custom build 50" Plasma (burn-in on projection was really bad)
- Enduro Racer (motion)
- Harley Davidson
- Indy 500 single
- Sega Rally 2 Twin
- F355 twin running Outrun 2 SP
- F355 single
- Sega Club Kart single
- Star wars POD racer

In the smaller space we currently have:

- Megalo with a customized vertical 40" 4:3 plasma
- Sega New Astro's, Windy, Blast and New Net Cities
- Decathlete (running Hyper Olympic)
- Killer Instinct 1 dedicated cab
- War gods
- White Water pinball
- Whack a Mole
- Silent scope 2
- Spike out
- 2 Namco Noirs running PC games like Rayman legends (4 player)
- 2 Namco Blanc running Ultra Street Fighter 4 (2 cabs linked as versus setup)
- Taito Vewlix running Crimzon Clover
- Nintendo Red Tent running hyperspin with mainly 2 button nintendo VS games
- Donkey Kong replica cab running a 60-1

This is pretty much the current list but because we do a lot of buying/selling of these cabinets the line-up changes from week to week

Here are some pictures:

And finally here is a film clip which was skillfully made by a forum member Sombetzki

Zitat von Luigi

This is an impressive lineup, though it lacks the classics, if you ask me

Haven't we met in Hilversum last year?

True that there are few (80's) classics. It is something we are working on although the community is mainly oriented towards Candy and newer.
The Enduro Racer, GP Rider and Final Lap are some of the oldest ones.

Zitat von Behle

It's a nice collection...the cake-machine an the Dariusburst i've seen in Hilversum, or wasn't it yours?

The cake-machine....WTF

Haha Cake-Machine
That is the table flipping game I guess. I asked my source in Japan to find me one of the craziest games available and we agreed that Chabudai fits that discription
The Darius Burst in Hilversum was mine indeed. I guess about 70% of the cabs in that room were mine. Some of them are sold by now, including the Initial D5

Zitat von Otti

Wo in Holland ???

Hilversum, 260 km .... Entfernung ...

We are based in Zoetermeer just above Rotterdam. So if Hilversum is 260KM than we are about 50Km further. Worth every KM in my opinion. We have guests from Belgium who travel about 2,5 hours just to beat us in USF4 and Daytona

Zitat von ApfelAnni

ps. " Ich entschuldige mich, dass dieses Thema in englisch schreibe. " .. .. nicht alle deutschen sind so grobschlächtig und humorlos wie der kollege letztens . ich achte
immer sehr auf nettikette und höfliche umgangsform , vor allem wenn ich mich in us foren bewege . die amis sind da immer recht empfindlich .

I think it's kind off etiquette to talk German on a German forum. I should have paid more attention in German class at School. Although you probably wouldn't notice while talking German with me. I used to work at Centerparcs (Heijderbos) and spoke German about 3 years straight

- - - Aktualisiert - - -

One of the next projects that I'm working on is a rotating WEC Le Mans 24:

And it's rival the Outrun Deluxe:

Zitat von kw/

Huge and great collection. Amazing that you build a whole community on Candys, Racer etc.. Now i have to rethink over my holiday plans...

You said the collection is made public available for community meetings and events. Do you have regular openings for everybody?

Thanks. Yeah the community (Nozomi.nl) is mainly focused on Japanese arcades but open for everything as long as it's fun

We do not have specific dates for events but normally it's around every 2 months. The last 2 events were just meetings. Before that we did championships like "who is the best arcade gamer" or "who is the best shmupper". For these events we've opened the doors to community members and their invites. But in my opinion, any arcade community is a welcome community. I'd rather have arcade lovers in the arcade instead of random people who do not have the same passion like we do.

Zitat von winni

My opinion: Great collection, but not my style.
I´m at home in the real 70ies and indeed 80ies, maybe, if you need technical aid in troubleshooting crt´s...
let me know, thats my business and professionell skill
regards
Winfried

For me personally it's not about the dates. Although I like some next gen games you can put me in the most advanced racing simulator but I will always prefer Daytona USA. Just Like I would always prefer Donkey Kong over any other platformer.
Regarding the monitors, I might contact you about CRT's some day. What would be your specialty with regards to CRT's? Fixing chassis boards by any change?

Zitat von Teufeltier1977

Schöne Sammlung und würde mal gerne rum kommen.

You are more than welcome! We will probably be holding an international event in the upcoming months. I will post any info about that here.

I love a bit of physical work but moving 201 CRT monitors into the warehouse is a bit too much
We actually thought of putting the boxes in a setup like QBert haha

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Zitat von mr_code_red

Id also like to visit you one day. Are there also fighting game enthusiasts showing up regularly? Im heavily into fighting games and always looking for competition.

During each event we have a steady stream of streetfighter, Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct players although their level is just a bit better than regular.
In the past we have hosted a Fightgame competition with the guys from Dutchnoobs (formerly drakenslag) and had an 80 man attendance. We will host another fightgame tournament in due time. As soon as I have more info I'll post it here for sure.