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Report: Japan Arcades Dropped From 26,000 to 4,000 in 32 Years


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kinghumanity



Joined: 03 Nov 2014
Posts: 365
PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 1:08 am Reply with quote
I know that smartphone and console games are all the rage in Japan, but has the PC gaming market there grown at all during this era?
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Sobe



Joined: 04 Jun 2011
Posts: 880
PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 1:09 am Reply with quote
Time to rebuild those arcades as living areas given Japan's urban population density.
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
Posts: 13540
Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP
PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 2:01 am Reply with quote
Sobe wrote:
Time to rebuild those arcades as living areas given Japan's urban population density.

One might try some of the non-mainland island chains like Okinawa.
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n1nn1nn1n



Joined: 25 Mar 2019
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:09 am Reply with quote
It's unsurprising. I remember there was a big arcade where I went to Japan one year and then when I came back two years later it was gone.
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Aca Vuksa



Joined: 22 Mar 2018
Posts: 643
Location: Nis, Serbia
PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 6:38 am Reply with quote
The arcade is dying, smartphone and console are becoming much more norm in Japan there.

At least we have some arcade emulation that keeps preserving them from being a lost.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 6:45 am Reply with quote
Japan's population has also been decreasing for a long while, with fewer and fewer youths every year
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I_Drive_DSM



Joined: 11 Feb 2008
Posts: 217
PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 8:17 am Reply with quote
I’m in Tokyo currently, and the popularity of smart phone games here is utterly staggering. Near everyone in the subway and any other transportation plays some sort of mobile game and it crosses all age groups; doesn’t matter if it’s kids riding around to get home or business men heading to a bar. There’s also a good handful of adult smart phone games now similar to typical eroge which until recently I didn’t realize that market even existed.

If I remember a statistic I read some time back Japan is also one of the largest markets for smart phone spending.

Is the statistics for brick and mortar arcades also counting places like UFO catcher shops? There’s a good handful of places that are just that but do not have the ‘standard’ coin arcades.
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OjaruFan2



Joined: 09 Jul 2018
Posts: 659
PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 9:59 am Reply with quote
Before I saw this article, I thought that arcades were still popular in Japan because of all the recent arcade cabinets released by big companies like Takara Tomy and Sega. I guess those companies can continue to release newer arcade cabinets, despite the declining popularity of arcades in Japan, because of name recognition.
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jdnation



Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 1994
PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 1:00 pm Reply with quote
Arcades will need to move onto something that people can't easily experience in order to survive - like room scale VR stuff. It's certainly very different from what arcades used to be but I think keeping innovation that's not possible in the majority of Japanese homes or on cell phones or is cost-prohibitive to normal people with some of the classic cabinets will be the way to go, but right now that's a heavy investment for shrinking businesses, and VR quality may not catch up in time for where it's extremely immersive.
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Clodus



Joined: 25 Dec 2005
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Location: Kansas
PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 1:17 pm Reply with quote
There's a Typo in the article in the second to last paragraph, "aracade".
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nDroae



Joined: 26 May 2017
Posts: 382
PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:28 pm Reply with quote
When I think of Japanese arcades, my mind jumps to the infamous table-flipping game. This is the kind of gimmick you can't get on home or mobile devices.
https://youtu.be/vbpSHW8ENy8?t=532

Then there's this immersive Gundam game... which cost 400 yen per go, five years ago:
https://youtu.be/ZdBHxxxRjZk?t=731

A similar one with fighter jets:
https://youtu.be/ZdBHxxxRjZk?t=371

I don't think even VR is a replacement for that combination of immersion with having real-world physical control surfaces in front of you. That's something special.
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AkumaChef



Joined: 10 Jan 2019
Posts: 821
PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 4:05 pm Reply with quote
nDroae wrote:

I don't think even VR is a replacement for that combination of immersion with having real-world physical control surfaces in front of you. That's something special.


I agree. I've often thought back to jet or space fighter-pilot arcade games that I played as a kid more than 25 years ago. Sure, modern games have much better graphics, but they sure can't beat the feeling of actually sitting in a cockpit with proper controls, motion and force feedback, etc. Modern HD video is cool, but it's not as cool as your seat moving around as you fly the plane, feeling the vibration when you shoot off a missile or get hit by the enemy, etc.

But it seems that like with a lot of tech modern society seems to prefer convenience above most everything else.
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hikura



Joined: 21 Nov 2004
Posts: 565
PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 11:20 pm Reply with quote
That still more than america has.I grew up in arcades.
Yeah sure you can still find arcade cabinets here and there but overall no more actual arcades.Yes i know about dave and busters.
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
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Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP
PostPosted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 2:00 am Reply with quote
enurtsol wrote:
Japan's population has also been decreasing for a long while, with fewer and fewer youths every year

Well, considered how crowded Japan is, that could be a reason why! However, Japan's population is minute compared to those of India and China!
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Crispy45



Joined: 23 Sep 2012
Posts: 363
PostPosted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:02 am Reply with quote
hikura wrote:
That still more than america has.I grew up in arcades.
Yeah sure you can still find arcade cabinets here and there but overall no more actual arcades.Yes i know about dave and busters.


Japan is also where something like Nintendo's Streetpass idea soars. So many bustling metropolitan areas where you're surrounded by thousands of people at any given time, unlike in other countries where things are more spread out unless you maybe go to a convention or college campus.

4000 arcades can still service quite a lot of people in Japan, especially if they're in busy areas like Shinjuku and Akihabara.
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