Many businesses are facing adverse effects due to Covid-19, including those within the gaming industry, and perhaps doing worst of all are arcades. Sega Sammy--the parent company behind both SEGA's home gaming and arcade sectors--has faced "remarkable" losses during 2020, resulting in the company deciding to sell off a majority of its shares in its arcade entertainment subsidiary. Next month, SEGA will sell 85.1% of its ownership of Sega Entertainment Co. to a Japanese business called Genda. Following the sale, the existing arcade systems throughout Japan will still retain the SEGA branding, and SEGA itself will still develop arcade games, but the ownership of those arcades will belong to Genda.

Source

 

[Patxinco]

Username finally relevant.
(tx=ch in my country)

Well, feels like they are outsourcing the arcade, if they still make the games but they don't have to pay for the machines, the rentals of the different places, they could be cutting losses by a lot.

 

[Bladexdsl]

was only available in japan anyway so no loss here

 

[eriol33]

That's sad, but maybe it will recover after the pandemic is ocer

 

[Skelletonike]

Arcades are completely different in Japan, it's not like the Arcades here where it's mostly the same games from the 90s and early 2000s.
There are excelent arcade games in Japan, they even have smartcards that register characters, stats, etc. It's not just "Insert Coin".

 

[raxadian]

Damn, this is incredibly saddening

Do you live in Japan or somewhere else in Asia? Because most people has not seen ir played Sega Arcade machines in over a decade and those were old machines.

Sega is not the only one affected, just the one we hear about.

 

[Stealphie]

Very sad

Let's hope Konami decides to sell off their pachinko business.

 

[Pokemon_Tea_Sea_Jee]

Arcade gaming is now a cool oddity but a total waste of money for consumers.

 

[leon315]

I am also shocked they still made arcade games, though I suspect this news is more of an end of an era/did you know type deal.

Arcades still exist here, though are usually relegated to seaside towns and most things there are gambling deals with maybe a light gun game, a car/motorbike game, maybe a fighting game, and a gimmick (last one I went to had an older game that blew air in your face and pretended like you were on skis).

before the age of chaos, pandemic and lockdown, i used to go to Cinema a lot, there are surprisingly a lot of arcade machines, people play them all time before film starts.
People has just changed the way and place to install those machine, but you can still find them plenty around, especially when they are part of Cinema business model.

 

[PatrickD85]

A piece of nostalgia ... loved a lot of the good old SEGA arcade cabinets.

If things get really hard for SEGA ... which I dont hope ... I hope they please consider joining efforts with Nintendo.
I would reaally reaaaalllyy like to see a 3D Sonic that does tick all the boxes in the right way. 3D Sonic now is nothing more but a bad meme.

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

A piece of nostalgia ... loved a lot of the good old SEGA arcade cabinets.

If things get really hard for SEGA ... which I dont hope ... I hope they please consider joining efforts with Nintendo.
I would reaally reaaaalllyy like to see a 3D Sonic that does tick all the boxes in the right way. 3D Sonic now is nothing more but a bad meme.

Eh, sonic forces wasn’t really bad in a funny like 06, it was just kinda depressingly mediocre

 

[PatrickD85]

Eh, sonic forces wasn’t really bad in a funny like 06, it was just kinda depressingly mediocre

Sonic should not be funny because the game is bad, but I simply can not cal Sonic Forces any form of good.
Sonic Forces still till this day gets pushed as a great game by SEGA ... which it really is not. It is way to buggy to be great

But I still want an epic 3D Sonic to get made at some point.
I will never give up the love for the blue hedgehog though ... he is part of my childhood, in which he indeed was GREAT.

 

[luigirockz]

Sad to see Covid-19 as the reason for the sale but at least they'll still be making Arcade games

 

[Deleted User]

Dude, that emulator has some shady shit surrounding it from what I've heard.
[/MEDIA]

Please explain further I've been using it for a year and never had a problem. What do you mean by shady shit? The only thing I can think of is they have patreons? So does m4xw. I have no idea what you're talking about.

Of course it's not the same as being at an arcade but in my city we don't even have any arcades so it's moot to me anyway. It is still a fantastic emulator.

Honestly I can't think of anything that you may say that's shady that I would care one bit about. It's an emulator that works good that's ALL that matters. Unless they're selling secrets of the United States to the enemy or something? lol.

 

[deltagalone]

A world with no pachinko machines? Maybe devs will finally invest more money and time into console games like they should have if they wanted to be part of the industry.

But what if the games have pachinko games IN THE GAME!?

shenmue has some in game games i think pachinko was planned but is frowned upon there i not sure if they implemented i haven touched a dreamcast in ages.

 

[mightymuffy]

Sad to see Covid-19 as the reason for the sale but at least they'll still be making Arcade games

I used to work for a company that went under due to Brexit .....which was a complete load of bollocks, but that's what the media said.
Now in this case, are Sega in that bad a shape due to the pandemic they need to get rid of their arcades ...or does Microsoft simply not want them maybe.....??

 

[Ampersound]

That's sad, i've always liked going to the arcades as a kid.
I've heard there are a ton of arcades in japan, hopefully the industry as a whole won't die out.

 

[luigirockz]

@mightymuffy

Yeah that could be the very case here. Getting out of another hardware business.

 

[zeveroth]

Once again saying goodbye to some of my childhood. First their systems and now there are kids. At least they have software development left, I guess.

 

[SS4]

Damn, guess SEGA can never go back to its glory days . . .

 

[Bladexdsl]

At least they have software development left, I guess.

for how long though?