JPH085750Y2 - Professional video game console - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial field of application] The present invention relates to a commercial video game machine, and more particularly to a commercial video game machine capable of collecting information such as sales and the number of times games have been used.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, in this type of video game machine, by inserting a coin into the coin selector, the coin switch is turned on so that the game play can be started. I was calculating the number of coins. Then, the value of this coin counter was copied on a memo or the like and the total was done.

[Challenges for devising]

However, if you want to know the daily sales, for example, if you want to know the daily sales, you should look at the coin counter every day, copy it, and enter it manually into another computer for counting. Laborious work is required.

Then, the subject of this invention is to provide the video game machine which can collect the number of coin insertions, the number of times of game play, etc. every day by an extremely simple operation.

[Means for solving problems]

In order to solve the above problems, in the present invention, there is provided a first connecting means for detachably connecting a memory cassette composed of a non-volatile memory storing at least a game program, graphic information, and audio information, and a game program. Based on the instruction of the external operation means for giving the instruction to the processor for executing the game program while processing the information from the memory cassette, and the calendar means capable of updating the date at least, the daily coin number is calculated. A video game machine is configured by means for accumulating, work RAM having a backup power supply for storing the integrated value, and second connecting means for detachably connecting an IC card including a RAM having a backup power supply. The processor saves the integrated value in the work RAM in the RAM of the IC card according to the instruction of the operation means. It is characterized by having means for

Further, in the second invention, means for accumulating the number of daily plays and work RAM having a backup power supply for storing the integrated value are provided.

[Action]

In any of the inventions, since the number of coins inserted and the number of plays daily are stored in the work RAM having the backup power supply, even after the main power supply is cut off,
The data can be retained, and when the IC card is inserted into the second connection means, the number of inputs and the number of plays can be written in the RAM in the IC card. Since the RAM in this IC card has a backup power supply, Its contents are retained and can be read by any other suitable computer.

Further, the above information can be collected from a plurality of game machines with a single IC card.

〔Example〕

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

As shown in FIG. 1, a commercial video game machine 1 is provided with a CRT 3 on an upper surface of a housing 2, and a joystick 5, a shot button 6, a start button 7, and a game select on a front operation panel 4. A switch 8 and the like are provided. A display panel 9 is provided upright on the rear portion of the housing 2. Furthermore, a coin insertion slot 10, a coin return slot 11, an IC card insertion slot 12 and the like are provided.

The display panel 9 is divided into a plurality of (eight in the illustrated example) sections 91, and in each section 91, a character graphic or the like explaining the type of game or a simple play procedure is drawn. When the select switch 8 is pressed, only the section is sequentially brightened so that the selected game can be clearly discriminated.

The structure of the panel 9 is, for example, as shown in FIG.
A transparent front plate 92 and a back plate 93 are fixed to each other with an adhesive 94.The front plate 92 is provided with a groove 96 into which a unit panel 95 indicating a game type, a play procedure, etc. can be inserted. An EL (electroluminescence) element plate 97 having substantially the same shape and area as the unit panel 95 is fixed to the back plate 93. Printed wiring for operating the EL element plate 97 is also provided on the back plate 93.

3 and 4 show an example of the memory cartridge 20.

As shown in the figure, the memory cartridge 20 is composed of upper and lower covers 21 and 22 and a substrate 23. The covers 21 and 22 are fixed to each other to form a casing, and the substrate 23 is housed inside.

The substrate 23 has a plurality of nonvolatile memories 2 such as ROMs.
4 is mounted, a suitable printed wiring (not shown) is provided, and it is connected to the pin electrode group 25. This pin electrode group 25
Are exposed in openings 26, 26 'provided on the front surfaces of the upper and lower covers 21, 22, respectively.

As shown in FIG. 4, the non-volatile memory 24 is an RO that stores graphics such as game characters, messages and characters.
It has an M241, a sound program ROM 242, a voice synthesis ROM 243, and a game main program ROM 244.

The pin electrode group 25 is obtained by setting the memory cartridge 20 inside the housing 2 of the video game machine 1.
It is connected to the edge connector of the game machine 1.

Next, an example of the internal configuration of the game machine 1 will be described with reference to FIG.

Now, a plurality of memory cartridges 20 (8 in the case of
Are connected to the edge connector 30 and unit panels 95 corresponding to these memory cartridges 20 are mounted in the compartment 91.

First, when the select switch 8 is pressed, the sections 91 of the panel 9 are sequentially lit, so that the switch 8 is stopped at the desired game. At this time, the cartridge select circuit 31 selects the desired cartridge as the memory cartridge 20 and makes it accessible.

When you press the start button 7, the central processing unit (eg 68000CPU) 3
3 and the sound processing device (SPU, for example, Z80CPU) 34 are the game main program ROM 244 and the sound program RO, respectively.
Make the M242 accessible.

When the game starts, the game main program is executed by the CPU 33 according to the operation of the joystick 5 and the shot button 6, and the video processing circuit 35 and the SPU 34 are controlled. Under the control of the CPU 33, the video processing circuit 35 controls the graphic R
Access OM241. In the graphic ROM 241, unit information of 4 bits per dot and 16 × 16 dots per character is stored, for example, 4 × 1024 characters. this is,
Four 1Mbit ROMs are required.

Needless to say, multi-color expression is not possible with 1 dot 4 bits, and these 4 bits only display the color storage number in the palette. The palette is stored in a RAM (not shown) so that the video processing circuit 35 can access it. The V-RAM 36 also has a sprite area in addition to a table in which the numbers and positions of the characters displayed on the CRT 3 correspond one-to-one with the screen. The character of the ROM 241 is extracted, the color is given by the palette, and it is output as an RGB signal.

Further, the voice processing device 34 executes the sound program of the ROM 242 according to the progress of the main program, and generates the sound source according to the contents of the voice synthesis ROM 243 in which voice is stored as digital information.
The IC 38 is driven to give an audio output to the amplifier 39.

By the way, in such a commercial video game machine, the game can be played only by inserting a coin.

Therefore, the micro switch 40 that detects the insertion of coins
The program PRG32 determines the number of times the game is turned on, calculates the credit (necessary unit charge for the game) based on it, and when the start button 7 (Fig. 1) is pressed, the credit is 1
If it is above, the game can be started for the first time.

In addition, the program PRG32 integrates a daily total coin count, game play count, continue count (number of times the game was continued), credit count, etc., and writes a routine for writing this cumulative value into the work RAM 42 having the backup power supply 41. Have Then, these data can be written in an IC card described later via the connector 44. In addition, the daily date is
It is obtained by the calendar means 43 (commercially available calendar IC).

An example of a routine for obtaining the above integrated value is shown in FIGS. 6 and 7.

First, in step 50, it is determined whether or not the coin switch 40 (Fig. 5) is turned on, and in step 51, the temporary coin counter C ₁ and the total coin counter C ₂ for calculating the daily integrated value are added respectively. . Next, in step 52, the credit number n is calculated.

Here, the number of coins inserted and the number of credits n do not always correspond 1: 1. For example, one coin may be able to play one game, or one coin may be able to play a plurality of games. Therefore, if one coin can play one game, the number of credits per coin is n = 1/2, and if one coin can play two games, n = 2.

Next, at step 53, the credit counter CR ₁ and the total credit counter CR ₂ which is the daily integrated value are incremented by n, and at step 54 it is determined whether the game start button (7 in FIG. 1) is on or off, If it is on, step 55
If it is off, proceed to step 70.

In step 55, the credit counter CR ₁ is 1 or more,
That is, it is determined whether or not enough coins have been inserted to play one game, and if there are insufficient coins, the process proceeds to step 63 (described later).

Next, in step 56, it is determined whether or not the game is to be restarted from the state where the game is ended (whether or not a flag F described later is set). If the condition is NO, the daily game is executed in step 57. The counter P, which is the number of times of play, is added, and the main program of the game (included in the cartridge 20) is executed from the beginning in step 58. If the condition is YES, a continue counter CNT indicating the number of times the game was continued halfway is added (step 59), and the game is restarted from the point where the game main program ended halfway.

If the game is over after continuing the play, the credit counter CR ₁ is decremented in step 60, and step 61
To determine if the game ended halfway and
The flag F is set at 62. At this time, insert the required coins within a certain time and start button 7 (first
By pressing (Fig.), The game can be restarted from the point where it was stopped midway. Therefore, in step 63, it is determined whether the timer T has exceeded a certain time T ₁ , and if it is within a certain time, step 64 Then, the timer T is incremented and the routine returns to the entrance.

If the timer T exceeds a certain time T ₁ , step
65 1 hour coin counter C ₁ and credit counter CR
₁ , clear timer T, reset flag F, and proceed to the next routine.

As shown in FIG. 7, first, in step 70, the calendar means is used.
It is determined based on the information from 43 (Fig. 5) whether the date has changed, and if the date has changed, steps 71 to 74 shift the table (see Fig. 8) for accumulating daily totals. Advance the date as indicated by the chained line on the left. Subsequent new total counters C ₂ , CR ₂ , P and CNT are stored in the bottom row memory. Note that the table in FIG. 8 accumulates daily totals corresponding to one week (7 days), but is not limited to this.

In addition to the number of coins, the number of plays, the number of continue, the number of credits, the number of services, etc. may be added to the total item.

Furthermore, since the video game machine shown in the embodiment can play a plurality of different games, a totaling table for each game is required.

Such a table is held in the work RAM 42 having a backup power supply as described above. In order to take out the contents, it is first determined in step 75 whether the game machine is in the test mode (in order to put the game machine in the test mode, for example, the test switch in the housing is turned on).

If it is in the test mode, in step 76 it is checked whether the IC card is ready for writing. This is, for example, whether the IC card is inserted in the connector 44 (Fig. 5), whether the IC card's backlight number matches that of the game machine, etc., and if these are normal, The data of the table in the work RAM 42 is written in the IC card by pressing an appropriate operation button (any one of the buttons 6, 7, and 8 in FIG. 1).

An example of the IC card is shown in FIG. As shown,
The IC card 80 has a static RAM 81, and the work R
It has multiple memory tables that correspond to the AM42 tables, and can collect data from multiple video game consoles. The static RAM 81 has a backup power supply 82 so that collected data is not lost. Further, the pin terminal group 83 includes the connector 44
(Fig. 5).

In this way, the data collected by IC cards from multiple video game consoles can be input to a computer that can read IC cards to make hard copies,
Statistical processing should be performed.

〔effect〕

According to this invention, as described above, the work RAM having the backup power supply is used as the total memory for the daily number of coins and the like, which can be taken out by the IC card. Therefore, the coin counter or the like can be visually copied. The data can be collected with a very simple operation even after the game place is closed or on a holiday, and if this IC card can be input to another computer, statistical processing etc. can be performed. It can be done quickly.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an arcade video game machine according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a cross sectional view of a display panel of the same, and FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view showing an example of a memory cartridge. Is a block diagram showing the configuration of the above, FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a video game machine, FIGS. 6 and 7 are flow charts showing an example of a processing routine for counting the number of coins, and FIG. A memory table showing an example, and FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing an example of an IC card. 1 ... Commercial video game machine, 2 ... Casing, 3 ... CR
T, 4 ... Operation panel, 5 ... Joystick, 6 ... Shot button, 7 ... Start button, 8 ... Select switch, 9 ... Display panel, 20 ... Memory cartridge, 40 ... Coin switch, 80 …… IC card, 92 …… Front plate, 93 …… Back plate, 95 …… Unit panel, 96 …… Groove, 97…
… EL element board.

Claims (2)

[Scope of utility model registration request] 1. A first connecting means for detachably connecting a memory cassette comprising a non-volatile memory storing at least a game program, graphic information, and audio information, and an external operating means for giving an instruction to the game program. A processor for executing the game program while processing information from the memory cassette based on an instruction, a means for accumulating the number of daily coins based on a calendar means capable of updating at least the date, and the integrated value. Second for connecting work RAM having a backup power supply for storing the memory and an IC card including the RAM having a backup power supply in a removable manner
And a processor for saving the integrated value in the work RAM in the RAM of the IC card according to an instruction from the operating means. 2. A first connecting means for detachably connecting a memory cassette comprising a non-volatile memory storing at least a game program, graphic information and audio information, and an external operating means for giving instructions to the game program. A processor for executing the game program while processing information from the memory cassette based on an instruction, a means for accumulating the number of daily plays based on a calendar means capable of updating at least the date, and the integrated value. Second for connecting work RAM having a backup power supply for storing the memory and an IC card including the RAM having a backup power supply in a removable manner
And a processor for saving the integrated value in the work RAM in the RAM of the IC card according to an instruction from the operating means.