Clarification of the Q-City "Upgrade"

[Jeff Greeson]

Sorry if I had misled anyone into believing that there was a new upgrade shipping soon (including MK4 Developers). The contact person at Q-City seemed very reliable. It ends up that their buyer does not see the relevance in buying a full MK4 cabinet. I totally disagree with that statement; yet, it does bring up a valid point. MK4 is only being shipped as a cabinet. That includes monitor, case, controls, power supply, coin hopper, and a MK4 system board. The greatest thing about arcade games is that there is a standard. JAMMA is an arcade board connection that mostly all arcade games released follow by. I'm pretty sure that you've seen a MK2 game that has Johnny Cage on the side of the cabinet before. That's because the owner just pulled out the MK1 game board from the cabinet and stuck in a MK2 game board. This ease of upgrading is what keeps most arcades in business, because they only have to buy a cabinet once and then can buy multiple system boards by themselves. Now you're probably wondering what does this have to do with MK4? MK4 is only being shipped with a full cabinet since it's release. Currently an upgrade kit is <B>not</B> available. For many arcades, buying MK4 with a cabinet is not economical. The buyers have seen the numbers from v1.0 and are using those numbers as a justification for not purchasing MK4. However, since then Midway has released Revision 2: more characters, more fatalities, more features, and it's more complete. Arcades would be getting tons more game for the same price as v1.0. Still they are reluctant to buy and are holding out until the upgrade kit. What's the delay on the upgrade kits? That is yet to be answered. Until then, everyone will have to drive a little farther to play their favorite fighting game