Sega Calls it Quits For Arcade Business After More Than 50 Years | Remaining 14.9% Shares to Go to Genda

Sega announced that it would now end its Japanese arcade business after serving its customers for over 50 years.

According to the latest report, all the remaining arcades will go to Genda as part of the acquisition.

Sega Bids Goodbye to Arcade Machines

Since it revealed that it was now exiting the arcade venture after a half-century, the Japanese video game company will directly sell all of its remaining shares to Genda, Eurogamer reported. This means that the latter now has full ownership over Sega's arcade centers.

As a background, Sega has been a long-time arcade service provider in Japan since the early 1960s. At that time, it was operating nearly 1,000 game centers. While it was gaining a decent amount of earnings during the old times, the case was rather different in the present.

Rise and Fall of Sega

As such, there has been a gradual decrease in arcade machine usage since more people have many options to choose from when it comes to gaming gadgets/machines. At this current state, only a few arcade centers were reportedly continuing the business, which dated back as early as the '80s.

Furthermore, Sega was also popular for creating "Service Games" for the US military men. To bring entertainment to them, it deployed coin-operated machines during that period.

Later in 1966, the arcade giant unveiled Periscope, a shooting arcade machine that allows players to shoot ships through a periscope, hence the identity. This breakthrough sparked the inspiration for the firm to build more arcade machines for the people.

Since then, Sega had created a special place for games, and that's when it reached its popularity which took place between the '70s and '80s. Some of the widely-known arcade titles include "After Burner," "Daytona USA," "Outrun," and more.

As it slowly caught the attention of the world, it squared off with Nintendo for competition in the gaming industry. It released the top-selling title in the western region: "Genesis/Mega Drive."

At this point, Sega succeeded in dethroning Nintendo's long-time position in the business. However, a downturn of events happened as 2000 arrived. The company ditched improving its hardware and focused on becoming a third-party publisher.

Genda Rebrands Sega Arcade Centers to GiGO

In another article by Nintendo Life on Friday, Jan. 28, the rental company Genda rebranded the newly-acquired centers from Sega. Since it now has 100% ownership over the latter's stocks, it could now market the store names anew.

Per Hisashi Kataoka, the chairman of Genda GIGO, Sega's stores in Japan will be renamed GiGo as a way of thanking Sega for its long-time service in the arcade business.

Kataoka added that the re-branding will commence with Shinjuku, Akihabara, and Ikebukuro. Lately, it would apply to the remaining parts of Japan in the long run.

Meanwhile, Tech Times reported that "Yakuza's" creative head Yoshihiro Nagoshi left Sega amid NetEase transfer rumors in October.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Joseph Henry