A new reality: could VR revive the amusement arcade?

The rise of the gaming console has left its mark on living rooms and bedrooms around Britain – but it has also hit the high street. There were around 1,000 amusement arcades in the UK in the 1980s, but that number had halved by 2011, according to the amusements industry trade body, Bacta. Now, the next generation of gaming – virtual reality – is once again making the arcade the prime venue for playing cutting-edge games. Back at the inception of gaming, fans went to video-game arcades. Japanese coin-operated games like Out Run and Street Fighter managed to draw in players once Pac-Man and Donkey Kong fell away, but they could not beat increasingly impressive home consoles such as Sony's PlayStation, which came along in the mid-90s, and Microsoft's Xbox at the turn of the century.