[kangalioo]

People claiming rhythm games require low latency is a pet peeve of mine.

Rhythm games have knobs to offset the music, most even have sync wizards (tapping to the beat). If you have 200ms input delay, just have the game offset the music by -200ms. It's really not a problem

[iamevn]

When you need to add that extra latency it can feel bad. Especially in games where you're hitting tight (~30ms) timing windows. Having your button presses be several timing windows ahead of what you're trying to hit adds mental load that's noticable to me at least.

I got a cabinet for one of my favorite arcade rhythm games, Pop'n Music, a couple of years ago. It's older Firebeat hardware so it's a non-general purpose system specifically built for arcade music games not running a general purpose OS. I was surprised by how much better it felt than the newer versions of the game which run on Windows XP with inherent extra latency in its audio playback. (Other games by the same developer have taken advantage of lower latency audio apis in newer versions of Windows but iirc Pop'n hasn't gotten off XP yet.)

[snmx999]

Adjustable offset helps, but the greater the latency the more disconnected you feel from the beat. 200 ms would be absolutely unplayable. To put that into perspective, 200 ms is an eighth note when the music plays at 150 bpm. So every time your fingers move you have to wait an eighth note to see and hear the result.