The end of an era is upon us as Sega Sammy have announced they will be selling the final 14.9% of its Sega Entertainment division to Japanese rental business Genda Inc. Genda already own 85.1% of the division after Sega Sammy sold it to them back in 2020 in large part thanks to the height of coronavirus pandemic.
Sadly, once the deal is completed, Sega Entertainment will be renamed to Genda GiGO Entertainment. This also means that all the Sega game centres across Japan will see their iconic Sega branding at the front of each location changed to ‘GiGO’.
While Japan has always been known for their abundance of arcades across the country, the number of them have been declining over the years. At it’s peak in 1986, Japan had 26,573 arcades across all prefectures, but that number has dwindled to below 4,000.
