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Speaking to Kikizo, Sega AM2 head Makoto Osaki has lamented the loss of the arcade market outside Japan, saying it’s basically “dead”.
“Let’s not even go into the overseas market… it’s practically dead,” he said.
“The market there is entirely redemption [prize] machines now. The users in America just don’t go to arcades anymore, because they don’t see why they should invest the effort when they have games at home.
“In Japan, you’ve got arcades near train and bus stations that the vast majority of the people have to pass going to and from work, so they get a lot of traffic.”
There’s lots more through there on Virtua Fighter 5 development, if you’re feeling flush.
Viewing 3 responses
pjmaybe said:
He’s right - Most arcades are sad sorry places now. Our local street fair is in town at the mo and trawling through the arcades last night was a depressing state of affairs with mostly old and mostly really broken old cabinets nestling amongst the massive variety of shitty fruit machines and grab prize cabinets.
Still, who needs arcades when you’ve got decent machines at home now.
Esha said:
That’s the thing, isn’t it? One can either stand around in a smoky atmosphere, uncomfortable, and wrestling with a form of control they’re not used to anymore… or they can sit at home on their comfortable couch, laze around and play games on their nifty HD TV.
I’m actually surprised though that something else hasn’t sprung up in its place, some sort of gaming club phenomenon for console gamers. Like nightly LAN parties, but with couches and big, shiny TVs and subscription-based entry.
Personally, I’d drop a few quid a month to have a local place that has a number of absolutely humongous HD TVs which I could play LittleBigPlanet on with some of the people I know. That’d be nifty.
Retroid said:
If I had a nice lottery win I’d open up a gaming bar; sofas and seats with nice screens for people to play team games, other machines for solo stuff.
Last time I went to Blackpool it was bloody depressing… place used to be great for arcades but it was mostly fruit machines and the like. Ugh.