Month: July 2016

While the Modding Station at Evolution featured all the usual suspects who were quick with the soldering irons and Dremels, one name at the booth stood out above the rest.  Bryan Armitage, founder of Paradise Arcade Shop, was also there, modding alongside the likes of people already discussed in a previous article about the station, complete with his own wares to sell.

Armitage founded Paradise Arcade Shop alongside his wife, Susan, several years ago, when he started buying arcade parts in bulk, and decided to make his bulk ordering services available to the public as another option.  This couldn’t have come at a better time, filling the void of the now-defunct Lizard Lick Amusements in a scene that was still burgeoning due to the fighting game renaissance.  What started with humble origins in Hawaii, however, turned into a trailblazer within the tech community, as the Armitages began to experiment and create new products, even working with companies such as Brook to bring out products that not only excited the community but could meet every need imaginable.

While at Evolution, I was able to sit down with Armitage to discuss what makes Paradise truly that–a gamer’s paradise.

Missing Person: You actually come out here all the way from Hawaii every year.

Bryan Armitage: Actually we moved to Minnesota this year.

MP: So Paradise is no longer palm trees but snow.

BA: Yes, six months out of the year, we’re shoveling snow instead of sticking our feet in the sand. We decided to keep the name and keep part of the team because we had so much fun with it, and people know the name.

MP: Paradise is known for constantly coming out with new and innovate products for arcade enthusiasts.  What drives you to keep improving your products?

BA: For me, a lot of the fun is coming up with things that people enjoy. Nothing beats seeing someone sit down with the buttons you design, like the OBS-MX, and then come back to tell you, “I’m hitting combos that I’ve never hit. I love these, and I’m putting them in all my sticks.” We’ve come out with our LVT3 boards that people say are the easiest installs they’ve ever done and suddenly they have LED lighting in their sticks.  It’s that kind of feedback that keeps me going.

MP: What is your favourite product that you’ve put out so far?

BA: I have to say that it’s our OBS-MX buttons. The buttons are great but it’s fun to sit around and tweak them. I was able to toy around and find the difference between 1.2 millimetres of activation and 0.6 millimetres of activation; it really gets me into the biomechanics side of me that likes doing those type of things.

MP: And these are actually an alternative to the GamerFinger HBFS buttons. What are some things that you learned from their design that you implemented into your OBS-MX buttons?

BA: The GamerFinger buttons were a great design and a great way to bring MX buttons to the market. But we were getting a lot of feedback that they felt soft and that the caps on top of the plungers were falling off. So what we did was use the old style of caps that Sanwa uses, and we use clips that hold the caps down. The GamerFinger buttons allowed the MX switches to travel full length, but we restrict the movement, which takes 1 to 1.2 millimetres off the travel, and this does two things. First, it makes the buttons feel less soft, and second, it keeps the caps from ever popping off.

MP: And these are just as silent as the GamerFinger buttons, correct?

BA: We were playing around with the new silencing pads, and the interesting thing is that because of how we designed the buttons, the silencing pads that work with MX keyboards work with our buttons. So when we came out with these, I joked that it was like buying a Ferrari.  Because you don’t buy a Ferrari and ask if the radio is good. You buy a Ferrari because it drives fast and drives well. So I came out with these and made them the best performing buttons I could make, and didn’t worry about what they sounded like; I just worried about feel and performance, and we hit the mark.  And once we did that, we started to focus on the creature comforts.

MP: What drives you to come out to Evo every year?

BA: The thing we started to do this year, with us being at Combo Breaker and CEO this year, is we get our ideas from fans, from people who support the store and the community, and it’s great to just meet people, shake their hands, find out who they are, and put faces to the names of people who talk on Shoryuken.  It’s a lot of fun. When we went to Combo Breaker, a lot of people asked if we had straps for the TE2. We didn’t, but a few weeks later, we go to CEO, and we had straps for the TE2 custom made. We showed up to Evo with Evo branded TE2 straps. We keep pushing forward and a lot of it comes from the feedback and questions we get. The other thing we brought to Evo is we collaborated with Brook to bring out custom PS3/PS4 to Xbox 360 converters, and that came out of all the input we received from and pushing Brook, telling them, “You have to do this. You have to do this.” And they finally actually hand-carried them over from Taiwan.

MP: So you guys are definitely driving the community forward technologically.

BA: We’re one of the players doing so, and I think that’s the neat thing about this community. There’s a couple of people that really dig in and help each other out, trying to take the technology forward.  We see each other as competition but also as friends. So we come up with something, then show it off to each other to brag about, then immediately get working on the next innovation.

MP: So do you feel that this competition is great for the community?

BA: It’s great. The competition helps drive people forward.  There’s a lot of room in the community, and as long as everybody remembers that and plays nice, it’s great.

(Special thanks to Armitage for providing all pictures for this article.)

Got a New 3DS? Got fond memories of playing Street Fighter on your Super Nintendo? Live in Europe? Well, Nintendo and Capcom are bringing you a pretty hot deal on the SNES Virtual Console.

The SNES versions of Street Fighter II Turbo, Super Street Fighter II, and Street Fighter Alpha 2 will be up for purchase this Thursday, July 28th. If you’re on the fence it’s worth noting that through August 11th you’ll be able to snag all three games for the price of two. There’s no guarantee that this VC release will revive the Street Fighter Alpha 2 SNES tournament scene, but all three games were landmark titles for the series. With the bundle deal and the convenience of portability, it’s certainly worth considering bringing these historic Street Fighter entries into your digital collection.

Source: Nintendo UK