The Japanese arcades they are disappearing: despite being the country that has probably supported this type of activity the longest, in Japan they have been recorded longer eight thousand closures in ten years.
The pandemic period has unfortunately led to a substantial acceleration in this sense, see also the sensational farewell to the SEGA Clubs, but it is clear that the situation is linked to technological progress and the availability of PCs and consoles capable of offering experiences that were once unimaginable in the domestic context.
Moving on to the numbers, during the last fiscal year alone, eighteen bankruptcies related to “game center” activities occurred in Japan, while before 2020 the decline in arcades is around 30% mainly due to price increases.
A place belonging to the past
As mentioned, in Japan the sector has resisted stoically despite the presence of Extremely low profit margins (we are talking about just 6%), but the crisis is not the result of recent years: according to police documents, in 1986 there were over 26,000 businesses in the country, which rose to just over 4,000 in 2019.
In short, we are talking about a place that now belongs to the past, which at least we can return to visit virtually in the Yakuza / Like a Dragon series games and the spin-off series Judgment.
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