Intel: Coming to an Arcade Near You

Waiting for your favorite arcade games to come to your PC is a long and frustrating process...there's the wait for the game to be successful and then the wait for the company to build a PC-specific version of the game. Many times, the games that have seen some great play in arcades or on consoles have little luck in maintaining their high standards as they make the jump to the PC.

Well, brothers and sisters, Intel has heard your cries and has launched a new initiative to change the way arcade titles are made.

Wednesday, Intel gathered game developers and producers at the first Open Arcade Architecture Forum in Santa Clara. The mission was simple: Intel announced its new AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) technology on Monday for use with its Pentium II processor and it thinks that this new technology can help game developers push their games to Pentium II-based arcade systems.

What will this mean for you? If you find one of these new Intel arcade setups in your local arcade, the process of making that game part of your permanent home collection is a lot closer to reality. Also, you'll get something close to the same game you played in the arcade.

Intel reported that a total of 15 game demos were shown from major companies like: Angel Studios, BlueByte, GreyStone, Rage, Mango Grits, Harmonix, GT Interactive, Leaping Lizard, Vivid, Interactive Light, Kalisto, Ubi Soft and Inner Workings. Games are expected to hit arcades by the end of the year.

The unfortunate part of the Intel arcade architecture initiative is that prospective gamers must buy a new Pentium II to run any of this at home.