Game Over, Yeahhh! SEGA Dumps Japanese Arcades After 50 Years

Quarterly review.

SEGA is pulling out of the Japanese arcade business after an iconic 50 year run. The company’s logo is synonymous with Tokyo’s once-bustling arcade scene, but it will sell all of its existing amusements to Genda Inc, a rival organisation that operates locations under the GiGO branding. It’s the end of an era, but hardly surprising – the coronavirus pandemic accelerated a decline in arcade foot traffic.

The writing was on the wall back in 2020, when SEGA shifted roughly 85 per cent of its arcade shares over to Genda Inc, but it’s now decided to flog the rest. Arcades have been on the decline globally for many years, but have been much slower to die out in Japan. It’s a sad but altogether inevitable end for a publisher who packed so much joy into the humble quarter.

Read the full article on pushsquare.com