When we think of Namco, we typically think of the many classic video game franchises that they have given us over the years. Galaga, Dig Dug, Pole Position, and of course, the eternal Pac-Man. Plus we can be quick to forget the short lived ?Namcot? when they entered the home game publishing market. But I don?t think that the typical person thinks of things such as forks, spoons, blenders or anything else that can possibly be in a kitchen when you think of the company. But perhaps it?s time for a chance, because it has been announced that Namco Bandai is in fact working on a brand new chain of what they are calling an ?upscale entertainment? restaurant. Intrigued? Let?s take a look.
Being pondered as a way to give the company a new twist of their roots, Namco is currently in the prototype stages of designing this new restaurant chain, with hopes of eventually going international with the concept. This is all thanks to a special partnership with a professional restaurant owner in Kansas City, who has a long history with running various high-scale restaurants throughout the Midwest. Namco Bandai is interested in creating a completely different style of the traditional arcade experience, that would combine the restaurant centered approach with the traditional entertainment focus of the organization. The testing center for the idea is planned to be somewhere in the Chicago area. Namco Entertainment official David Bishop confirmed these rumors:
?It?s no secret that we?ve been exploring a number of new business models and noodling the future of Out-of-Home entertainment for several years now, and our current planning does include an ?upscale? restaurant with ?entertainment elements?. And yes, we?ve been working with an established American restaurateur, as well as some other really talented external professionals, to develop the concept.?
This original concept was at first codenamed ?Level 256?. For those that do not get the reference, a few arcade games created by Namco (specifically Pac-Man), have a famous unintentional kill screen. In Pac-Man?s example, the games level counter was a single 8-bit byte and therefore was only able to store 256 values, ranging between 0 and 255. Once you reached the 256th level, the program code caused the counter that is used while drawing the fruit to ?overflow to zero?, causing 256 fruits and 7 blank spaces to be drawn.
However, this is not the first time that Namco made an attempt to tap into the food and club industry. In 1999, a prototype cafe was developed which included a Pac-Man gaming area. The concept and design failed at the time, and never went beyond the initial prototype stage. On an international level, especially in Japan, there are quite a number of?restaurants and cafes with gaming themes, one of them actually being owned and run by Capcom. The combination of eating a meal and playing arcade games is still possible for the future in the United States. When you ponder the concept of such chains like Dave & Busters and Chuck E. Cheese (which ironically was founded by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell), if just makes you wonder what the future holds for the format.
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