Some sad news for SEGA fans at the start of the week. We learned that Club Sega Shibuya has closed its doors as of yesterday. News of the arcade’s closing became known with the posting of signs outside the arcade, politely advising customers of the impending closure. The location’s website also has a message, which also gives the January 31, 2016 closing date as well as a thank you to customers for their patronage. No word on why the arcade had closed, though it may simply have to do with the fact that it is a dwindling business in the country. There has also been speculation that the closure could have to do with the renovation of Shibuya Station, which Club Sega sits just outside of.
Club Sega can still be found in Akihaba, Nagoya-Fushimi and Nishiguchi. For a full list of operating SEGA amusement centers, check out this link.
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Very good barry. Censoring opinions that dont match your greedy shill sega methods. Im disgusted by you
Thanks. Your previous comment was actually caught by our spam filter, and I would have un-flagged it, but since you are playing the insult card I’m going to pass.
Well its to muc of a coinsedence. But if it is the spam then ill take it back. Sorry for that. I feel offended easily. Working on it. The thing is all we hear is
Less games.
Less arcade
Less employees
Bad performing games
Late or no localisation.
Things dont look so bright at all. It is very worrysome cause i am really burned on it to have streets of rage 4 someday.
Thing is, we’ve actually been seeing more games and more localizations. So far we’ve had Yakuza 5 at the end of 2015, and Yakuza 0, Valkyria Chronicles Remastered and SEGA 3D Classics Collection all confirmed for localized releases. This gives much more hope for Yakuza 6, Yakuza 1 remake and Azure Revolution. Less employees is accurate, but of those who were laid off they were either redundant due to Atlus USA positions that already existed or they operated in areas that never worked well for SEGA of America to begin with. It was a matter of trimming fat and people leaving because they did not want to make the office move. We’ve since seen new employees coming on to fill old roles.
Bad performing games… I’m trying to see where you are coming from, but I don’t recall any seriously bad performing titles. Last one that comes to mind is November 2014’s Rise of Lyric. SEGA actually dominated on the 3DS in 2015 when it came to best reviewed titles. Less arcade is just a sign of the times and is not a SEGA exclusive situation. SEGA is still producing and distributing arcade games both East and West, and as seen in the link in the article above, still has several operating arcades.
I have to agree with Barry on this one. SEGA has scaled back as a company, and they don’t make as many games anymore, but they don’t have too many flops these days. Compared to what SEGA was in the 90’s, I can see your concern. Compared to where they were a few years ago, they’re doing pretty well.
I can not agree nor disagree. Ill just say if the promises are fullfilled this year and when localisation becomes a standard. And we get a yearly syncronic releases we will be allright and sega can once again prove worthy
Ithurts to see arcades vanish. What was once a standard in the 80’s and 90’s has become a past. Im getting old i guess. But no one can take my memories.
I agree a bit with both…
Sean’s very root heritage is the Arcades though, with that in decline even in Japan to a lesser extent than in the west, what else does Sega have to rely on? It dominates the arcade scene and is the only area they truly dominate that is left. They could always rely on the arcade scene through the home console mishaps, in the same way Nintendo always did with the handheld market.
The great thing about Sega’s arcade heritage was that arcades for a long time, were far beyond home console technology and PC architecture, so Sega in a sense was always sort of living in the future in terms of technology and it’s main trump card was in being able to translate these arcade classics to the home via their home console series – which was the big main incentive that got Sega into the home console scene in the early 80s after the gap left since the late 70s.
It seems Sega is trying to solidify itself as a mobile producer and try to attempt to dominate other industries in the way it does with the Arcades as what else is here? They aren’t really big news in the home console scene these days, maybe they are trying to change that and buying up Atlus was a necessary step towards this.
Though, interestingly, let’s not forget, that Nintendo, started out merely as a card company, and before it got involved with videogames in the 70s, it was at one point a hover company and almost became a taxi company before settling on the videogame market.
Sega however, was always with gaming from the start, videogames origin hails from the Arcades and Sega for a long time has dominated this industry that has been the true home of videogames.
*Sega’s root heritage is the Arcades.
‘Sean’ was a typo, damn predictive text system on this device.
It is sad to see this “Club Sega” place closing its doors in that area. It is a shame that I haven’t even visited Japan, yet. Not to mention that there use to be a shop based on the Sakura Wars series somewhere in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district but like I said, It’s not there anymore because the shop closed on March 30, 2008 and that’s a shame, really. At least that Club Sega place can still be found in the other three areas as Barry just pointed out. If only me and my family had the time and money to visit Japan at all……