SEGA sells major stake in game center business

[SuperPang]

SEGA have sold 85.1% of the shares for "SEGA Entertainment", the part of the company that manages their game centers to a global amusement company called GENDA, meaning they're out of the arcade management business at the end of the year.

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/pickup/6375606

[sven666]

..only major genda i can find are in construction and if thats the case.. well.. RIP all sega arcades

Ed: i proboably found the wrong genda..

[SuperPang]

https://www.siliconera.com/genda-sega-e ... nt-shares/

[waiwainl]

https://arcadeheroes.com/2020/11/04/wha ... -in-japan/

Gives good insight. Might be a good thing actually, this take over.

[murdaonyou]

That’s a big stake !

[SuperPang]

[geotrig]

cue some dope taking that as them releasing the dreamcast 2

[MrJBRPG]

At least more reasonable articles are bringing light to the situation. They explained that Sega is selling off the management aspect while still continuing to make arcade games and maintaining their game center brand.
https://www.dualshockers.com/sega-stops ... explained/

Regardless, these rumors of "Sega ending arcade development", especially with some projected time lines are crazy and ludicrous.

I wonder how that would fare for Sega's All Net P-Ras Multi-System? They probably might continue developing some games for the platform and keeping it alive for some time.

On the other hand, should there be less focus on arcade games, especially slowing down production with gradual decline, it may spell a slow demise for Sega arcade games. If the worst fate happens, that leaves other competitors to fill in the niche like Taito and Namco, along with some newcomers like Unis and Exa Arcadia (obviously the most talked about of newest competitors making impact).

[LEGENOARYNINLIA]

I have a feeling you posted all that just to slip the last bit in.

[Jan]

Such a

[arcnl]

This guy is probably responsible for over half of the hate exa gets. Quite the achievement

[SuperPang]

SEGA have also announced a large number of redundancies and pay cuts for executives. They've made huge losses this year, entirely down to the arcade sector.

Sega Sammy released the financial report for the second quarter of the 2020 fiscal year that ends in March 2021. The company saw a deficit in Q2 of the fiscal year, with an operating loss of ¥3 billion.

The only profitable segment in the first half of FY 2020 was the Consumer area—which consists of the console, PC, and mobile games—which brought in ¥20.3 billion in operating income. While the Animation / Toy area also contributed a little to income to the tune of ¥200 million, that profit was completely offset by losses of ¥1.9 billion from amusement machine sales, ¥2.7 billion from amusement center operations, ¥2.6 billion from resorts, and ¥12 billion from pachinko machines.

[aerobert]

No ****. Japanese people doesn't go to "modern" game centers full of ufo catchers anymore. The hardcore retro gamers go to Mikado and such.

Tweens and teens don't go to Akiba either. Those areas of Tokyo are not fashionable and are mostly frowned upon. They're old and worn.

All while these areas and arcades are empty because mostly tourists go to Akiba and want their nostalgia from 20 years ago.

[SuperPang]

That's a huge loss on Pachinko. Perhaps an older crowd avoiding public spaces?

[theman]

This feels like the end of an era

[Nomax]

I read lot of **** about this on the net. Here's the original article we published that day in the morning: http://www.arcadebelgium.be/ab.php?r=ne ... 2020-11-04
I think it pretty much sums up the deal. Despite this, numerous tweets and articles with sensationalist titles and sometime plain wrong assumptions were published after that by non-arcade publications. As usual...

[sploit]

Very sad that that SEGA had such big losses and also very sad that some staff lost jobs due to the situation.

As for the management of arcade centres being sold off, I remain cautiously optimistic. I think SEGAWORLD was not ran by SEGA themselves - but was at it's best when under the SEGA branding.

[gray117]

... Sega aren't re-positioning because they're making mad money from these locations... But the firm plus certainly seems to be that everything looks like it gets to continue: the locations seem to be going under a group with a long term plan for them, and sega get to keep making the games.

There's probably plenty other entertainment/event-based businesses right now that are presumably just imploding and dragging their related divisions down with them :/

[Shou]

Sammy is gathering cash so they can build an integrated casino resort in Japan.
They will be one of the few companies granted to do this by the Japanese government and the capital outlay is enormous.

Besides selling their locations (at an all time low), they also have sold numerous assets like a large share in Sanrio (Hello Kitty).
The Satomis have always dreamed of owning a casino in domestic Japan so that will take priority over everything else including gutting Sega (except for selling IPs).

Sega of Japan arcade development will likely be fully absorbed into consumer and mobile by the end of 2021.
Without their own locations, they can no longer participate in reciprocal buying of flops between the manufacturer locations.
For example, Namco's Sword Art Online and Jojo bombed heavily but Taito and Sega still purchased it.
Likewise, Sega's major flops like Star Horse 4, WCCF and APM3 were purchased by Taito and others.

Now, they have no guaranteed purchases even at their previously owned locations.
Nagoshi has also eyed those AM resources so he can expand the Yakuza studio to have multiple games per year.

Overseas Sega amusement development will likely continue in a limited capacity for now but unlikely to get any kind of significant budget for 2021 due to COVID.

[SuperPang]