Arcades & Arcade Games | Sega Arcades Are Officially No More

[Moonface]

Sega Sammy announced on Friday that it would sell the remaining 14.9% of its Sega Entertainment division, which runs its game centres across Japan, to rental business Genda Inc.

Genda first purchased 85.1% of Sega Entertainment’s shares back in 2020. At the time, Sega Sammy cited uncertainty around the pandemic as the reason it had decided to sell.

The pandemic’s impact also led to the closure of Sega’s famous Akihabara arcade in September 2020.

Following the sale, Sega Entertainment will be fully renamed to Genda GiGO Entertainment, it’s been confirmed, and all Sega game centres nationwide will have their Sega branding changed to ‘GiGO’.

Source: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news...rom-japan/

This is a real shame to see, since Sega's arcades are such a prominent feature of Japan. The only bright side is that Sega just doesn't own them so the arcades still live on at least; if the arcades just entirely disappeared that would be sad since arcades have definitely declined in number over time I think.

How many of you have visited any arcade before, or wish you had been able to visit a Sega arcade specifically back in their prime? I've been to an arcade only a couple of times, and I mostly love them because a lot of the games in there are exclusive, and even if they weren't being able to see all those games in-action makes me notice a lot of games I would overlook if they were just all shown on some dull digital store front or all sitting in boxes on a shelf in a store. If Sega had a lot of their games in those arcades and they'll be going away I really hope they find a way to try and offer some of them on PC and consoles as a port because I'd hate to see those games just disappear when they can be really unique. I'm surprised with how arcades have become a smaller market (mostly in western territories) that game companies haven't tried to re-release more of their arcade games to home systems.

[ShiraNoMai]

Honestly they're not the same, I find (the home console releases of arcade titles). There's just something about the atmosphere and the joystick + button combo that really hits it different. Like, playing Super Monkey Ball on a joystick compared to the analogue stick on a controller was WAY different, more than I expected. And it was really tense and fun! I already get tense playing that game normally at home but in the arcade setting (and this may have been because people were hovering/watching me) it was very "stakes are high". Actually, that may be due to the fact that the playtime is limited to your skill. You can't really do that at home because you can always do-over—you can't do that at the arcade.

Unfortunate about SEGA. COVID really killed off this market pretty hard, when it was already struggling, but especially sucks when you consider they were really trying to revive it by putting a lot of money into it.

[Kyng]

Sad, but a sign of the times, I guess. Really, it's amazing that they lasted in Japan for as long as they did - given that they died out in the rest of the developed world long ago.

Myself, I did use some arcade machines while I was on holiday, but I haven't done that for almost 20 years now.

[Moonface]

I expect they lasted longer in Japan because of their culture. Gaming cafes are another huge thing there that aren't as common in the west, and Konami even opted to switch to pachinko machines instead of actual games because they could make more money from those gaming machines.

@ShiraNoMai: True, there's definitely elements of an arcade that can never be replicated properly at home, especially for games that rely on the machine as part of the experience such as dance machines, light gun games, or others that rely on a specialized control input.

[Dragon Lord]

@Moonface - And now it's being reported that Pachinko is dying out FAST, haha. Konami might have to go back to developing actual games, the horror!

I never had any arcades around me growing up, so I never got to experience that kind of scene. Kind of sad that I never did, but at the same time because I never did, the fact that all the arcades are dying out doesn't really bother me at all.

[Moonface]

@Dragon Lord: I hadn't heard about that. Is it dying because of Covid or is it just dying off because interest in it is waning?

I couldn't think of what games might have arcade versions you would want to try if they had any differences DL apart from Miku, but it looks like Future Tone Arcade was ported across to PS4 in almost if not all of its entirety.

I also didn't realise Dengeki Bunko was ported either, but that was mostly because I had forgotten about it and when I saw it at an arcade recently my immediate thought was "Wow, I've never seen this type of crossover fighter before." XD

On the bright side of all this, Sega is still going to produce arcade machines and games, so at least the medium as a whole isn't dying out. Bandai Namco looks to still be producing too, so it doesn't seem arcade machines aren't profitable but just the business of running an arcade itself is.