Namco Bandai seems to have come up with a solution to their problem of (possibly) Wii-fueled arcade downturn: involving the Wii in the arcade. According to a very sad Asahi Shimbun report about closing arcades, Namco is now planning games that will allow data to be shared between the cabinet and the Wii -- we assume by Wii Remote data transfer.Home/arcade integration from Namco is not terribly surprising, since Tekken 5 actually has PlayStation 2 controller ports on the cabinet. No, the really interesting thing about this story is trying to figure out what Namco Bandai is going to design for play on both the Wii and in the arcade.
The news article is pretty interesting in other ways, as well: it goes into possible reasons for arcade business slowdown other than the Wii ... like the economy.
[Via IGN]
