Earlier this week, news broke that Akihabara Gigo 1, formerly an iconic SEGA arcade with a 32 year history, was set to close at the end of August 2025. The reason given was that the fixed-term lease on the building has expired. The location originally opened in 1992 under SEGA’s ownership as High Tech Land Sega Shintoku, and later was called Club Sega Akihabara and then Sega Akihabara 1. If you’re wondering, the “1” denotes that this was the first of five SEGA arcades in the area.
In 2020, however, SEGA pulled out of the arcade ownership business (they still produce machines, they just do not run arcades – aside from Joypolis which is a whole other situation). In 2022, Genda fully acquired SEGA’s arcade building ownership business after years of being partners and applied their GiGO branding to all locations, including Akihabara’s five locations. This story of an Akihabara GiGO closing might seem familiar, as back in 2022 shortly after rebranding building number 4, that location also shut down for the same reason location 1 is closing.
As somebody who visited all four Akihabara GiGO locations earlier this year, GiGO 1 was certainly the most photogenic from the outside, but inside it was not the best of the four. GiGO 3 is the one SEGA fans will really want to visit, as it retains a whole retro floor filled with rare and iconic SEGA machines. Still, it’s sad to see a little piece of SEGA history disappear.
Thankfully, another amusement company will be filling the space. Matahari Entertainment will take over the building (the company behind Silk Hat, which is a very similar arcade chain to GiGO). It’s also not all bad news for GiGO, as they has just announced a new three-story location set to open in Tokyo called GiGO Fuchu – which you can learn more about here. Additionally, SEGA’s own SEGA Store is opening in Shibuya.
If you want to see a walkthrough of Akihabara’s GiGO arcades, check out my vlog below!
Ad:
Happy to know the location with the retro section was spared. Still a bummer though. Hopefully the more that things change, the more they stay the same! That, and mikado retro game center along with gigo 3 are still around by the time I visit japan!😊👍
gigi 65 is comin
Sounds like the property owner is setting the lease too high.
The SEGA logo was a landmark there, never been quite the same without it since.