Sega Sammy has announced it is selling the remaining 14.9% of its Sega Entertainment division to rental business Genda Inc., the company which purchased 85.1% of Sega Entertainment’s shares in 2020.
The sale follows a torrid time for arcade operators globally, with the ongoing pandemic massively impacting business. It also marks the end of 50 years of Sega arcades in Japan. Sega Entertainment is to be rebranded as 'Genda GiGO Entertainment', with all Sega arcades in Japan being turned into ‘GiGO’ centres.
Sega's history in Japanese arcades stretches back to the 1960s, and it is thought to have operated around 1,000 game centres in the late '90s. However, since then, the arcade sector has been in a slow decline as home systems have increased in power, and today, only a fraction of the arcades that were operating during the '80s and '90s continue to do business.
Sega's history with co-op gaming goes back even further, of course; established as 'Service Games' in the 1950s with the aim of supplying coin-operated amusement machines to U.S. military bases, the company would eventually release its own coin-op, Periscope, in 1966. When the explosion of video game arcade machines happened in the '70s and '80s, Sega became one of the leading firms thanks to a string of hits including OutRun, After Burner, Virtua Fighter, Daytona USA and countless others.
It was this arcade pedigree that allowed the company to enter the home arena and challenge Nintendo – another company that had benefitted from the increased popularity of arcade machines. Sega's most successful system, the Genesis / Mega Drive, would become a best-seller in the west, ending Nintendo's period of dominance. However, subsequent systems fared less well and at the turn of the millennium, Sega was forced to abandon its hardware concerns and become a third-party publisher. It maintained its arcade centre business even since via the Club Sega arcades and sprawling Joypolis amusement parks, but that is now coming to a close.
Genda GiGO chairman Hisashi Kataoka said of the news:
Sega stores across the country will be switching their store names to GiGO, to express our gratitude for Sega’s 56 years of history and our desire to be an oasis that quenches people’s thirst for real entertainment. We will start with Ikebukuro, Akihabara, and Shinjuku. Then to the whole country.
There's some good news here – Sega Entertainment only runs arcade locations, and the arm of the company which manufactures and distributes its actual arcade machines is different, so we'll still be seeing Sega games in amusement arcades – just not ones owned by Sega itself.
[source videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 44
Wait, is that also mean I will never see next MaiMai DX machine by SEGA ?? 😨
The arcade biz in Japan has been shrinking. Sega had a good run, I’m sure.
A Sad day in the world
EDIT: HEY! SEGA'S NOT GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! THEY JUST SOLD OFF THE GAME CENTER DIVISION! THEY'RE STILL MAKING AND SUPPORTING THEIR ARCADE GAMES! ^^IT SAYS SO IN THE ARTICLE! SHEESH!
OMG!
@Anti-Matter They’re still making games, it’s the division that actually runs the game centers that got sold off.
Sad news indeed, unfortunately most will never experience the glory days of the arcade back in the 80s and 90s. Playing cutting edge, instant fun games, timeless classics. Will always remember the first time I played Outrun, Daytona USA just incredible. Then nothing in the home market came close, yes things caught up fast!! But the arcade experience was/is golden!!
Sad times. Sega World in London in the 90s used to be amazing.
although it's not happy news, not sure if i agree that arcades are still in decline.. here in NL new ones opened the last few years and seem very popular.. i would say the nadir of arcades was 15 years ago, when After burner was excactly the same on 360 and in the arcades...
It was interesting going through these arcades back in 2015. I never realised that arcade machine technology had advanced to such a degree in Japan with unique designs, control inputs and gameplays, multi-LCD displays, online connections and memory cards.
Although I must admit my favourite was one in Hiroshima where the top floor was filled with machines from the 90s and 00s, including a row of shm’ups. I just plonked myself on the far right and shimmied myself leftwards after a single credit play each.
Well may have popped in a second credit for the Macross shmup.
End of an era, thank goodness for VF5 featuring sega arcade locales.
Edit: I can not type on my phone.
@Anti-Matter what the heck is that thing?
Wow, that’s a big deal. That’s one of Sega’s main sources of income. I guess with the non-Sonic games they’ve helped release in the past few years, they can afford to not pursue the arcade industry anymore.
Growing up with arcades was a great moment in time….when the home computer and arcade gap was immense, we could never have comprehended ‘arcade perfect’ games at home yet here we are in 2022 when that is a reality.
There’s a few arcades left in the UK but very few. I live in Cornwall and even the single arcade in St Ives ( a massive tourist place ) only has a handful of machines now and these are all either sit down racing games or light gun games…..you won’t find Street Fighter 2 there!
I’ve said it many times on here and the whole 8bit / 16bit and arcade era was the greatest time in gaming.
Sega had left the arcade gaming scene a long time ago, this is just the arcade gambling scene (like Pachinko and jukebox machine) that they are leaving which make sense since gambling isn't that hot in Japan anymore.
@PessitheMystic
Oh, MaiMai is an arcade rhythm game developed and distributed by Sega, in which the player interacts with objects on a touchscreen and executes dance-like movements. The first debut was on July 2012.
It was like DDR but playing with your hands by tapping and sliding the touch screen / the 8 buttons.
This is how to play MaiMai on Arcade.
(Video from other player gameplay)
But they'll still be in the Yakuza games, right? RIGHT!??
Let's see who you really are, SEGA closure!
:: pulls off mask::
It's old man Coronavirus from the abandoned amusement park!
Can Nintendo burn some of the money they got and purchase Sega already? Although i would like Persona to become multiplatform instead of Playstation or Nintendo exclusive
Man this pandemic sucks…
Sega was born to make arcades, not consoles.
It's a shame, but this was inevitable, even before the pandemic, arcades were already gone and Japan was the only place they survived.
Thankfully, arcades came back recently, but mostly as a collector's item, the videogame market is diverse, there will always be options, even arcades are coming back as a niche.
Arcade games being replaced by what I like to call "children's gambling" is another reason to blame for this.
Nintendo seems to remain in the market, keeping a low profile. I blindly hope that they consider revitalizating this.
Hmm thinking about it, it doesn’t feel like such a loss really. I can get very nostalgic about mechanical Pinball machines, because those just vanish without a replacement. But arcade video games became home video games long ago, are bigger than ever and not going anywhere. So we’re merely losing the places and coin operation.
Sega has made history. Now we need more arcade ports 😁.
Whenever I see sad news about Sega, it always makes me feel grateful we still live in a golden era of options
I've been in and out of Japan for the past 20 years, which turned permanent 10 years ago, and I've noticed arcades disappearing. Granted, I "only" live in the 5th biggest city here, so there aren't as many arcades as some place like Tokyo, but it's still pretty sad to watch first-hand.
@Anti-Matter That game just looks like it's being played on a washing machine 😂
It does admittedly look funner than DDR, so I'll give you that!
I ventured into Japanese SEGA arcades on three seperate visits to the country. Such sad news
I was planning on visiting Japan before this stupid pandemic ruined everything and I had always wanted to visit the Sega arcades.
Guess that won't be happening anymore 😭
This was one of the main reasons I wanted to visit Japan. This really bums me out hardcore I honestly dont really want to visit japan now as dumb as that sounds. Iv wanted to go to one of those for decades and now there gone
It seems that if you love anything associated with Sega that isn't either Sonic or Yakuza, you likely haven't seen a new installment of it in years or decades and/or what little is left just keeps vanishing. Easily the most frustrating company in the industry to me as a hobbyist; so much history and so many beloved IPs just left to rot. Maybe "playing it safe" will keep the Sega brand alive for awhile longer, but for all intents and purposes the Sega that many of us fell in love with back in their heyday is dead already.
@Dingelhopper @Arcata If you don't mind these arcades with GiGO signs on them, they'll still be there as they are now. They're not closing (yet). And SEGA is still making/supporting their arcade games. But for the city skylines, the iconic blue SEGA logos on top of the red the buildings will be gone. That, by far, is the heartbreaking part.
@Dethmunk I mean, Japanese arcade games are still miles ahead of what we have in the west, and they're still being developed. A lot of them are designed for networked and repeat play and reward repeat customers thanks to those IC cards they use. Racing, rhythm, arena shooters, card battles (the game knows what cards you're putting down), even modern multicades like NESiCA and exA-Arcadia have been keeping things fresh for old and new arcade games by content updates deployed via server. If anything, we need more of those kinds of games in the west. Or start developing arcade games with the Japanese arcade mindset. Deliver an experience to get people hooked and get them to come back. For retro games at a bar, as much as I love them, nostalgia is a sort of dead end for keeping the arcade industry alive.
A sad day indeed to all of us that were lucky enough to experience the buzz of arcade gaming of yesteryear. I always used to say to my mate whilst standing there gobsmacked at the then newly released Final Fight in 1989! "Can you IMAGINE having those graphics at home Jim??!!" (Most of us were using Spectrums, Amstrads or commodore 64's and had to settle for some VERY watered down home conversions of the full fat arcade monster originals) 30+ years on and I kind of regret wishing such things as the home console and PC market gradually started to technically out gun even those mighty Model 2 and CPSIII ROM boards.
As a 44 year old I still foundly remember those halcyon days and nights down the Silver Hake chippy, as we all chambered to ram our 10 pence coins into the 1991 worldwide phenomenon that was the juggernaut called Street Fighter II.
Some of those mates I fought against are sadly long gone! But there's always the be my memories of them playing two player Sega Rally championship down the local boozer in 1994. (Yes we were underage)
Losing Sega to me personally is like losing those aforementioned old friends, Sega itself was a friend to all of us that grew up in that wonderful scene, I feel
Gone but never forgotten.
I think it would be more than fitting for Nintendo to purchase what remains of Sega and keep their IP's well and truly alive.
Sad day.
@masterLEON I'm glad the arcades will still be there, but I definitely wanted to see the iconic Sega branding.
At least I can still play some traditional Japanese arcade games!
Covid was just a nail in the coffin.
@Dingelhopper That is true, it's a little more of something lost. That's not to say that SEGA can't run in-store promotions or other things there. Initial D the Arcade, Love Live, Hatsune Miku Project Diva, and other cross-promoted properties with UFO Catcher prizes are still popular over there (hopefully not to be outdone by the online UFO catcher companies like MollyOnline).
@Mr-Glissando SEGA is not going out of business. SEGA is like Mitsubishi, they're made of a bunch of smaller divisions/companies that each handle a different aspect of the business, including companies like Atlus (Persona/Shin Megami Tensei). SEGA Sammy (the full corporate brand) sold off SEGA Entertainment (the game center part, not the arcade developers AM1, AM2, AM3, Products R&D, and Japan Studio Division 5) so everything is still fine, more or less, for now. It's just a new name (old, really, since GiGO was used in the past) on the game center buildings, and whatever changes or remodels Genda wants to do on the inside, if any.
@Mr-Glissando wow, great memories there my friend. I remember playing Street Fighter II in the arcades in Withernsea, with my brother.
I m actually excited to see how Gigo is going to transform the Sega arcades. They must have a great long term plan when they decided to buy Sega arcades.
Never been to one, so I don't really care.
@Anti-Matter Dont worry. The article makes the point that Sega Entertainment are the part of the company that operates arcade venues only. The part that makes arcade machines and develops arcade games is separate and unaffected.
The best arcade I ever went to was on Santa Monica Pier when I was in LA in 2005. Classic 80s arcade games in various states of disrepair (had a go on a Pac-Man and a Vs. Super Mario Bros.) mixed in with newer stuff like Time Crisis and Dance Dance Revolution. Absolutely blew my mind. I have no idea if it still exists.
@delt75 Considering there’s no global pandemic in the Yakuza universe, I think the SEGA Arcades in those games will probably remain intact. Even if the SEGA arcades don’t exist in real life anymore, it’s still a nice homage to their history, and I feel like they deserve to have continuous preservation in the Yakuza/Judgment games.
I grew up in Elkhart Indiana. We had a pretty nice mall back in the 80's and 90's. We had an Aladdin's Castle arcade, and that's where I feel in love with arcade games, but it closed in the late 80's, early 90's, but then a year or so later the mall got a "Sega Time Out" arcade. It was a complete 180 feel than Aladdin's. It was bright, lots of games for kids, "retro games" (even for 1992) towards the back, but up front were the latest games. That's where I fell in love with playing Street Fighter II (and all the variations.) I have no idea how closely these American "Sega" arcades are tied to the Japanese arcades, but I have a lot of good memories from the one in my small hometown. It lasted until well into the 2000's too. Much longer than most of the other stores in the mall.
@masterLEON Oh yea.. I did not think of that xD yea maybe It can still be cool. I should still go to Japan one day
@Arcata Definitely consider it! (I still need to go as well). There are other chain arcades, too, like Taito HEY and Round1 that are still fine. There are even Round1 locations in the US, and they feature Japanese games and prizes. The number of locations pretty much quadrupled over the past 4 years, so here’s hoping you have one near you.
www(dot)round1usa(dot)com/locations
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