@Alex The question is about why this known “hack” seems to be the default in pretty much every official Ms. Pac-Man machine out there nowadays. I am not condoning the hack to harshly, but I am trying to understand if Bally/Midway or even Namco has decided this one-time “hack” is now the default/desired behavior for the game cabinets.

Sometimes games like that are modified to fit the theme. It's not a "hack" it's just changing some numbers in their OWN game. That's not hacking if it's their game.

@Alex But maybe you should read the threads I link to: The “fast” mod is not a dip switch setting in the original game. It was a modded hack to a chip that one had to purchase aftermarket. But that was back in the 1980s. My question is why is this one-time “hack” now seemingly default behavior in the cabinets being released today by an official source. I can’t think of any other game where this is the case let alone one whose main appeal is nostalgia and being retro.

This is dangerously close to the territory of 'why did they design it that way?' but I see what your asking is not quite that at all. Additionally I've always idly wondered this as well only I didn't care enough to actually ask, I'm interested to see how this plays out.

He isn't asking why people, not primarily, he's more asking IF\DO, if I'm not mistaken.... I could be of course. JAKEGOULD if you ARE asking WHY, then this is for sure off-topic as we don't answer that specific type of question here, sorry.

@Ender Small thing, but I have utterly no idea why you are not “@” referencing me and instead USING UPPERCASE. Ultimately if there is a way improve this question to unlock it so it can be answered, I am fine with it. I ultimately want to understand if Ms. Pac-Man is distributed with “fast” mode on as the default and possibly why that is the case when that is known to be a “hack.” To my knowledge—given the amount of game creators and blogs out there—there is a potential to get a “why” question answered by someone who can ultimately be considered “Word of God” on this.

Just to be clear, Ms Pac-Man is not a hack or mod of the original. The idea for it started with a hack/mod, but it was developed as a real, separate product that was created after the sellers saw that there was an interest in variations on the original.

@JakeGould last I knew you cannot @ OP's in comments of their own post, clearly I was mistaken.

I love this question, but the way the actual question part of the post is worded, it is off topic. I would love to see you revise it to that it would be on topic for this site.

@ChaseC Please check my latest edits. I believe I have wiped the “Why?” and speculation aspect of the question out of the core question for now.

We can't really answer what manufacturers have, or will, do. Ask us about playing a game, we can help with that. Ask us about what the guts of an arcade machine is? Nope.

@Frank What you are saying kind of contradicts the “on hold” reason given. Look, I’ve edited the question as best as I can to remove what I have been told are off topic reasons. If now someone says, “You know what, it’s all off topic?” I don’t know what else to say. Ms. Pac-Man is a classic well known and popular video game. The modern cabinets play differently than the original/vintage ones. I’m simply curious to know why that is the case. I’m sure others would like to know as well.

We can answer whether or not current machines play faster or not. We can't answer questions about how or what was used in the guts of the machine to make that happen; how could we? We're gamers, not electronic engineers.

@Frank Did you actually read the question? Here it is, “Are modern Ms. Pac-Man cabinets officially distributed with the “fast” setting/hack/mod turned on by default?” Nobody is asking for anyone to explain the deep electrical engineering of a game. These cabinets are physical objects purchased from a manufacturer. Does this manufacturer now distribute these physical objects with a setting set to default that differs from what is the historic behavior of this game is. That’s it. It’s not too different than this question on NES cartridges.

Yes. officially distributed is the problem. How are we supposed to know that?

@Frank, asker defines officially distributed as coming from the manufacturer like that. You would be able to know if it did if you personally owned a ms pacman cabinet, brand new. As I personally know gamers who buy game cabinets, this does not seem an unreasonable expectation for (a) gamer to know. The question might not meet as much expertise as a traditional console question, but I do not see how it is off-topic

@JakeGould, as far as your question, I would greatly consider shortening its length. Anecdotal information might seem nice, but can be redundant. What you surely will notice is that some users do not read. While I do not think the above is a case of this, it does mean users will glose over the reopen vote, and the question in its entirity. To be perfectly honest, I would have attempted to fix the question instead of VTC, but it is hard to retain intent when addressing so much extra content.

@Timelord64 Simple: We have no clue what the manufacturer did, or how they did it. This is a hardware version of dev intent. We can answer with what we can observe from the game, but how that was attained is pure speculation. The new cabinets play faster. Okay? And? How and why it happened is off-topic. Complete developer/hardware design.

@Frank, all the question asks is if a brand new cabinet comes eith a set mode/level. There is even a video to show the old mode and new mode. Im not sure how you couldn't observe this, but I can see why asker thinks you did not actually read the question. The why and how has already been edited out.

@Timelord64 "But these are new cabinets with—supposedly—newer hardware in them? So are these cabinets being officially distributed by Bally/Midway or Namco with the “fast” mode on as a default and officially “baked” into the ROM?" How is this anything but hardware design? This is literally asking how the developer did it, or whether they're official or not. That is why I'm saying this is off-topic.

@Frank,I believe this problem falls back to the asker simply providing too much information. maybe asking if its "baked" could be considered off-topic, but if so thats just a tiny, seemingly insignificant part to the question. The rest amounts to the askers understanding, in the same way as one might ask "did the developers include all DLCs with [random new edition of an xbox/playstation] game". We accept these sort of questions under the tag version-differences, and anybody who owns a new cabinet would easily be able to answer.

@Timelord64 Thanks for the input. Condensed and clarified the question even more.

@Timelord64 I can certainly see your point of view, but I still think this is outside our purview. Whether something is being distributed officially or not isn't really a gaming issue. If it can be condensed to something like, "Do the new cabinets play faster than the old ones?", that'd be something I'd support. I can't support the current version.

@Frank “This is literally asking how the developer did it, or whether they're official or not.” I have rewritten the question to condense it: All I want to know is if someone buys a new Ms. Pac-Man cabinet via official channels nowadays—in the 2010s—will it be set to “fast” mode as a default. That’s it. For the purposes of this question, “Why?” or intent is meaningless. I just want to know if I plunked down the $2,000+ for a new factory fresh Ms. Pac-Man and plugged it in would play the game perceptibly faster than the older original 1982 cabinets.

Then I'd suggest you remove the parts about whether it's official or not. I'm interpreting that as a question as to whether or not the current versions are official; I don't think that's what you're trying to go for, though.

@Frank I am at a loss to understand how that would change things so I would like to suggest you make an edit to the newer, condensed, simplified version of the question that will satisfy this need. Chances are I will be fine with it. And hey. I just reworded it one more time. I am open to suggestions if this is still considered off-topic and welcome others editing the question to make it valid/viable.

I think your latest revision is good. I've voted to reopen.