Japan’s love for arcades is dying
- May 18th, 2008
- 1 Comment
Japan, often considered the last country with a passion for the arcade experience, is starting to lose interest in coin operated entertainment. Two of the biggest arcade chains in the region have already closed the doors at over 20% of their locations, and earnings continue to plummet.
Some in the industry are blaming the latest generation of consoles for sending the 6.9 billion dollar industry into a slump. Others blame the cigarette smoke that fills Japanese arcades, the expense, or the lack of innovation. When you get right down to it, it’s really the fact that you just don’t need the arcade anymore. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love arcades. I’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of both hours and dollars in them. However, it’s gotten to the point that besides the zomg-rip-off ticket/prize system and the creepy guy who stands a little bit too close while he watches you play, there just isn’t much at this point about the arcade experience you can’t get at home.
Hopefully the industry manages to come up with something that is both enticing to many and unique to the arcade environment. Otherwise, it seems that even in the arcade capital of the world, arcades might be done for.
[Via Reuters]
editor (Who am I?)
4 months ago
Dear CrunchGear,
There seems to be a hunger from some news services to attempt once and for all to bury amusement – if not physically, at least in the consumers eye. Having read the Reuters report on the Japanese arcade scene and its errors – I am now greeted with your feature – I think you will now see that copying the Reuter feature may have been a mistake!
I have tried to address the key errors in your report:
- The claim is that certain factories had closed “20%” of their amusement venue business – the truth is that Namco closed 41, while Sega closed 110 – and as both operations run over 500 sites in the main islands this is not 20% - or close?
- The out of date statement about the venues seemed a little confused. If we are talking about Japan they are smoke free in the majority, and have been underling a major update of facilities – the Reuter piece though inaccurate had to mention the redevelopment of the Taito/Square arcade operation.
- A comment about the close of Japanese amusement copied from the Reuter piece missed out the reality of the profitability of arcade for many publishers, Taito/Square, Konami and even Sega saw increase in revenue from amusement – yes Sammy Sega saw a down turn on their Pachinko side – but Pachinko is a different division to their amusement.
Finally, I would recommend that there are a number of excellent sources for factual information on the amusement scene. I understand that a number of vested interest in the consumer game sector want to claim expertise in covering arcade gaming, but as you can see there is a lot more too the market than just jumping up and claiming it is dead!
The Reuter piece was written badly and was not the best source (foundation) to base opinion on. The news that Street Fighter IV is breaking arcade records in revenue – those records created only a matter of weeks earlier by Tekken 6 – speaks volumes of a strong upswing in amusement. However certain consumer parties are less than happy with the coverage arcade is getting on the web and seemed to attempt to discard arcade interest – I would recommend that you avoid these vested interest.
If you want the facts on the international amusement scene just drop us a mail!