Going to open my First internet cafe & need help in design & decor?

[Hossam]

Ive been doing some research and im in the process of starting up my first internet cafe in Egypt and would like some help.
If anyone who is experienced in internet cafes please could u help me answer a few questions.

1.Choosing the best decor and design "lighting" for my Café "if any suggest photo avliabale 'll be aprreciated"

2.system specifcation .... sure the customer 'll play the latest games "half life 2 , UT04 ...etc"

3. How to manage PC, Xbox & PS2 operation & order ?


waiting 4 ur help plz plz


thnx in advance

 

[Hossam]

any help plz

 

[Matthias99]

2.system specifcation .... sure the customer 'll play the latest games "half life 2 , UT04 ...etc"

I would check out the AT system buyer's guides... of course, it will be difficult for most people here to give you any idea of pricing, availability, etc. in Egypt (unless you are buying the parts in the US and then shipping them there in bulk). There are also MANY threads full of people asking for help picking parts...

It may be useful to have 'cheap' systems that are only used for websurfing, and 'fast' systems that can be used for gaming.

3. How to manage PC, Xbox & PS2 operation & order ?

Usually PCs are billed hourly in internet cafes. You might pay US$5/hour for just 'internet' access, and maybe more for time on a fast gaming machine that's you can play on over the network. Are you selling Wifi access as well? I know there are commercial systems you can get for that, and probably something open-source on Linux that would do the same thing.

Game consoles... that's a bit tougher. I guess you could do them by time as well? And you'll have to keep people from stealing the games somehow (maybe keep the system locked up and change the games yourself?)

 

[AwesomeJay]

http://www.thetechzone.com/?m=show&id=234

might be a good read

 

[sharkeeper]

Here's ours.

 

[xsilver]

Originally posted by: sharkeeper
Here's ours.

ooooh....fancy..... dont think you want that in egypt though..... try and go for the "cool" look (pun intended)

if you want machines just for websurfing.... you could even use second hand crapboxes, if you could source them from somewhere

 

[Zepper]

At inet cafes, you wan't to go for quick turnover, not geeks playing games for hours on end (that's a recipe for business failure)... Charge in 10 or 15 minute blocks and limit to Web surfing/email/chat type activities. If you really want game playing geeks, set aside a separate section.

Abit VA-20 or DFI KM400-MV mobo - Duron 1800 or Sempron 2400+ or so CPU. 512MB value RAM per box. Something like the Athenatech A100 series for cases. Membrane type keyboards (pretty much spill/dirt proof); optical mice or Logitech Marble mice (trackball - probably would require more cleaning than normal mouse but requires less desk surface to use) or you could use keyboards with notebook-like touchpads built in; 40 or 60GB drives; Mag or Envision 17" CRT monitors (cheap/decent picture/far more rugged than LCD monitors. Of course you'll be using some variant of Linux for the OS as gaming is not an issue - just need to find one you like that supports the local language.

Good luck.

.bh.