I can't believe SEGA thought burning money in amusement parks was a good idea for a Video Game company.

>>11870673 (OP)
Tell that to Hudson, or NEC with their football team

>>11870673 (OP)
It was, for a time

>>11870675
What the fuck...

>>11870676

>I can't believe Red Bull thought burning money in sports was a good idea for an Energy Drink company

>it's a bad idea for an arcade company to create arcades

>>11870673 (OP)

>>11870690
Sega should have never made a 32 bit home console, focused on 32 bit arcade hardware, and released arcade ports on N64 and PlayStation.

>>11870673 (OP)
Sega Enterprises Ltd. was a manufacturer and operator of indoors amusement machines for over 30 years. They became a "video game company" simply because that was just a form of amusement machines popular at the time from late 70s to late 90s. Home video games were a side business of a side business for suits at Sega Enterprises Ltd. They genuinely believed that the future of Japanese game centers (arcades) was in larger indoor amusement parks which would combine smaller arcade machines (including video games) with new larger attractions.

I can't believe Disney thought burning money in amusement parks was a good idea for an animated film company.

>>11870673 (OP)
Nintendo is doing it right now

>>11870901
there were a gambling machines maker from USA. now they're HQed in japan and still making gambling machines.

>>11870985
i don't see a single Nintendo-only arcade in USA vlogs or in my SEAsian cunt

>>11870901
>map shows lost world special edition
I can accept never playing it, but fuck man, does no one have footage of a full playthrough of it, or atleast the new final level?

>>11870878
WTF?

>>11870673 (OP)
>>11870878
They really burned that candle from both ends.

>>11870848
At the turn of the century, it began to be a losing bid.

>>11870973
Disney ironically jumped out of the arcade game early on when the concept wasn't catching on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZQGtnEL2xs

>>11870985
>Nobody in the thread was talking about Nintendo
Derangement.

>>11871117
the 4-man mecha game by Disney looks cool though. but only 4 mins?

>>11870997
Speaking of gambling, here's something which can give people insight of how arcade companies think.
Remember Bally? The most well respected pinball manufacturer in North America, owner of the Midway brand, the company which introduced the Western world to Space Invaders and Pac-Man? In the late 1980s they bought several casinos in Las Vegas and unloaded the unneeded businesses, including pinball and video games, by selling it to Williams. They gave zero fucks as the expansion into gambling was obviously seen as more profitable avenue.

>>11871225
>Remember Bally?
never heard of them. but Midway clearly survived. and IIRC their arcade machines were cheaper than the nippon games ,and didn't ask for BS royalties.

>>11870901
>Home video games were a side business of a side business for suits at Sega Enterprises Ltd.

Oh, that explains a lot...

>>11871243
90s Midway was actually Williams, except for their home gaming division which was actually Tradewest.

>>11870878
Sega arcades do what Sega consoles don't

>>11870878
Funny how they almost immediately stop losing money once Saturn manufacturing stops.

>>11870673 (OP)
I only recently found out they had a Sega World in Sydney, Australia; but not only did you have to pay something like $30 even back then just to get in, you then also had to pay to play the games and go on the rides too. No wonder it only lasted a few years.

>>11870985
sega didn't have tens of billions of dollars in cash

>>11871225
Pretty sure I saw some Konami gambling machines not so long ago

Sega was really one of the arcade kings from the 80s to the early 2000s, both in terms of game quality, hardware, and even the cabinets themselves, so it stands to reason why they were interested in amusement spots which could incorporate those things. Even look at Sonic himself, sure he went on to be a home console platformer star, but in his early days they were experimenting with various arcade projects and even stuff like popcorn dispensers featuring him. They probably envisioned him becoming a general amusement product character and not just a console game hero.

>>11871117
>>Nobody in the thread was talking about Nintendo
>Derangement.
This thread was literally talking about it being a bad idea for a videogame company to make a theme park you moron.

>>11870673 (OP)
There's more to life than making money.

>>11870675
Nintendo owned the Seattle Mariners for a long time and they are doing fine.

>>11871796
ok anti-moron. where are the nintendo theme parks? i am still waiting >>11871002 .

>>11870985
Universal built all that shit, Nintendo just licensed it to them.

>>11872258
Osaka, Los Angeles, Orlando, and one is opening in Signapore.

Didn't SNK try to do something similar?

>>11874563
Yes, those also didn’t last

>>11870673 (OP)
Idk a go kart park sounds pretty dope. Imagine a bunch of sonic levels reimagined as tracks. Gotta go fast... would've been a great commercial and just have a bunch of people in sonic character costumes breakdancing on a racetrack while a bunch of race cars are doing donuts with fireworks being shot off in the background.
>"GOTTA GO FAST *FIRESTARTER by The Prodigy plays*
They could do it still, they could steal my idea and it would be lucrative. Sonic speedways and arcade.

>>11872452
i only remember a mario indoor game centre in japan though?

>>11871692
same reason some conventions in the pass charge a admission fee, and then the vendors inside all sell overpriced crap, because they also had to pay high rent to get into the convention. it's rentseeking by any other name.

GRASSY!

>>11870889
Nah they just should have cooperated with the western market that outsold them. The thing that ruined the saturn was pandering to japanese when sega was more successful in the west

ah

>>11870673 (OP)
SEGA is a casino company that branched out into video games.

>>11870673 (OP)
an amusement park makes way more sense compared to sonic 4

>>11871692
>I only recently found out they had a Sega World in Sydney, Australia; but not only did you have to pay something like $30 even back then just to get in, you then also had to pay to play the games and go on the rides too. No wonder it only lasted a few years.

It was really expensive. I only went once and decided to never go again.

The tickets were expensive to get in. THEN I had to pay for everything inside including the arcade machines. Not even special arcade machines either. These were the same machines that were available at other arcades.

The long lines were bad too. Sega doesn't seem to understand how to make rides that can serve a lot of customers. Sure it's a cool futuristic (for the 1990s) VR ride, but it only holds like 12 people. And it takes 10 to 15 minutes for the ride to finish. So if hundreds of people want to play, you will be waiting in line for HOURS.


>>11874625
>same reason some conventions in the pass charge a admission fee, and then the vendors inside all sell overpriced crap, because they also had to pay high rent to get into the convention. it's rentseeking by any other name.

Video game cabinets aren't vendors. I shouldn't have to pay $30 to $40 dollars just to go inside. Then pay again just to play the video game cabinets. The arcade cabinets aren't even exclusive to Sega World. It's the same arcade cabinets I could play at any other arcade. So what am I paying all this money for? At least when I go to a real convention, I can buy exclusive items sold by vendors and the items can't be purchased anywhere else.

>>11871763
Sonic wasn't actually that popular in Japan. He was just one of many characters to the Japanese. He was massively more popular in America. But during the 1990s Sega of Japan resisted pushing Sonic as the lead mascot of the company. Sega of America was the opposite. Sega of Japan wanted to push other characters like their Virtua Fighter characters or the cars from Daytona USA. Sega of Japan was such a dysfunctionally run company

>>11874563
>Didn't SNK try to do something similar?
Yes but SNK was not as big a company as Sega. They were like half the size and not nearly as rich. SNK wasted so much money trying to compete against first tier amusement park companies like Namco and Sega.

>>11875624
>Nah they just should have cooperated with the western market that outsold them. The thing that ruined the saturn was pandering to japanese when sega was more successful in the west

Japanese Pride wouldn't let them. The irony is that Sega was originally an American company that was sold to the Japanese. So Sega's roots were originally in the West. But the Japanese Executives refused to cater to Western interests. Meanwhile almost all Sega consoles sold like crap in Japan. It's lolarious.

>>11871441
>every paragraph contradicts the last one

>>11878395
>Sonic wasn't that popular in Japan
>SOJ wanted to tout other characters
this actually makes sense, they couldn't base themselves on a U.S. cartoon show

>>11878564
But Japan doesn't pay Sega's bills. The West does. I don't mean that as an insult. I mean literally most of Sega's entire income comes from the Western market. The West bought most of Sega's consoles and bought most of Sega's arcade cabinets. All the theme parks built in Japan by Sega seem like vanity projects. Japanese Executives chasing an audience that wasn't there. Like a boy chasing a girl that will never love him. For consoles, Japan was firmly in the hands of Nintendo, and later Sony.

>>11878130
What the fuck...?!

>>11871739
Konami is more focused on Pachinko machines than video games these days.

>>11870673 (OP)
It's called vertical integration, it makes perfect sense and the Sega World in your pic is in Fukushima, it's abandoned because of radiation.

>>11880289
>just put out a big-budget remake of sh2 with a new sh game and the mgs3 remake coming out by the end of the year
>just split their arcade division off into its own subsidiary as well as re-opening its us offices
And yet retards still think all they care about is pachinko because of a comment they made 10 years ago.

>>11880231
>What the fuck...?!

Sega was originally an American company. It provided Amusement machines, Juke Boxes, and Gambling machines (like slot machines and other electro-mechanical gambling machines) to Asia and Japan after World War 2. For a good 40 years, Sega gambling machines were extremely popular in Asian and on US Military bases.

Then in somewhare in the very early 1980s, Sega was sold to new Japanese owners. The original owners of Sega retired.

Then the Japanese owners started dabbling in making video games. They had about 10 to 15 years of prosperity from the 1980s to mid 1990s. And then the Japanese ran the Sega company in the ground and faced huge financial difficulties.

(Microsoft offered to buy Sega numerous times and solve all the financial problems. Sega said no every time due to Japanese Pride or whatever.)

There rest of the Sega story you already know. Saturn and Dreamcast fail horribly. Sega goes down. Today, Sega is less than a shadow of its former self.

Pretty wild how badly the story ended for Sega.

>>11880572
Wow, remakes of 20 year old titles and an arcade division that only makes DDR style rhythm games because even in Japan the arcade scene is dead. Konami is a shadow of its former self and the reason people think all they care about is pachinko is because after the comment was made their output fell off a cliff. Why is it the dumbest posters on this board are so fast to accuse everyone around them of being retarded?

>>11880572
10 years ago pachinko was all they cared about.
Now they are starting to get back into games because they see they can farm out their IPs to Wayforward or whoever and it's easy money

>>11880739
This is the video game magazine version of events. It completely leaves out the fact that Sega has primarily been an arcade machine company, outside of the brief stint where they got into consoles. Their arcade stuff was still doing amazing up until the forced lockdowns demolished the arcade industry. Chunthium, Sangokushi Taisen, and their various medal games were HUGE moneymakers.

People who don't understand that like to look at it as "sega was a console developer that died with the dreamcast and were reduced to third-party".

>>11880231
>What the fuck...?!
Taito was founded by a Russian Jew in Shanghai as Taitung and 'dealt in floor coverings, natural hair wigs, and hog bristles'.

>>11881057
>Chunthium, Sangokushi Taisen, and their various medal games were HUGE moneymakers.
Seems like these arcade machines didn't make as much money as you think since Sega never officially exported it to the West. Back in the 90s, when Sega made a new arcade machine it got exported worldwide. Sega made so much money back then. Today it's just Japan only for the most part. It limits their income.

>>11870673 (OP)
They made literally all their money in the 80s off of their arcade chain. They were just trying to recapture that.

It's funny how Sega of Japan is now the "main Sega" while Sega of America is there expansion project that keeps holding the smart Japanese back...

Fucking ANYTHING to salvage the Saturn, I guess

>>11871815
Not really, those other things that make life worthwhile cost money. It's better to be miserable with a wad of cash than to be temporarily happy but broke.

>>11878390
>At least when I go to a real convention, I can buy exclusive items sold by vendors and the items can't be purchased anywhere else.

back in the day, yes. now you can just buy them online or some cheaper clone of stuff.

>>11870673 (OP)
It worked when arcade machines were the best way to play the latest and greatest video games. Then consoles caught up in performance, and arcades crashed.

>>11874584
Imagine being in the arcade part and playing virtual racing then jumping in a kart and racing through mystic caves. Kino

>>11882082
Virtua*

>>11871904
Nintendo is also literally a century old with tons of moolah desu

>>11874563
Yes, one of the main reason (if not the main) they went bankrupt.

>>11882073
>Then consoles caught up in performance, and arcades crashed
industry had been dying since the start of the 90s and by early 2000s i saw arcades shutting all over the place. consoles and computers were only one part of the problem. they had other problems too, like image problems, ever increasing prices (of games and machines), lack of innovation. there was nothing to draw people to arcades like what happened in the early/mid 90s, entirety of 80s and earlier.

>>11885138
There's one major problem that ruined arcades in the 1990s. Arcade games weren't exclusive to arcades. Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Virtua Fighter, Tekken, Daytona USA, Ridge Racer, etc. Pretty every single major blockbuster arcade game got ported to consoles. There was no reason to go to arcades anymore on a daily basis. Just practice at home or invite your friend to play with you. Perhaps visit the arcade for a special occasion like a classmates birthday but that's it really.

Imagine if you could only play Street Fighter 2 at the arcades only. No SNES or Genesis console release. The lines would have been twice as long at the arcades for people to get their Street Fighter fix. No maybe even three times as long since people want to practice too. Console releases killed arcades. Which is rather dumb. Companies like Sega and Capcom and Namco ran their own arcades across the world. So Capcom releasing Street Fighter 2 on consoles only hurt themselves in the long run. Selling an arcade cabinet is far more profitable than selling an SNES cartridge. An arcade cabinet for SF2 was around $7000 dollars. An SNES street fighter 2 cartridge was around $60. The arcade cabinets are far mroe profitable to sell.

>>11885204
The market for games at home is bigger than selling an arcade machine to limited locations.

>>11885204
> . Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Virtua Fighter, Tekken, Daytona USA, Ridge Racer,
they were good ports but nowhere near as good as the arcades. nowhere near it.
>Pretty every single major blockbuster arcade game got ported to consoles
that had been going on since computers could be bought from the home.
>An arcade cabinet for SF2 was around $7000 dollars
which is why bootleggers went wild with it.
>The arcade cabinets are far mroe profitable to sell.
sure, if the game is a success but in general arcade development was fucking expensive. everything about it. organizations like capcom, namco, sega etc. would pour millions into designing arcade boards, cabs, etc. this is why they all started teaming up together to share platforms and then they all eventually gave up and just used x86 computers like other competitors started using long before them. the profits just weren't that great.

>>11885404
>>11885589
Modern arcade companies have a policy of not porting games to consoles anymore. There are interviews of Executives talking about how they recognize this was a mistake arcade companies made in the past, and it crippled the arcade market. That's why so many games are arcade exclusive now.

>>11885589
>>11885404
>>11885204
>>11885138
Modern arcade companies have a policy of not porting arcade games to consoles anymore. There are some interviews floating around on the internet where the Executives say they don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past. They realized that porting arcade games destroys customers desires to come to the arcade, and doing that in the past crippled the arcade industry. So they won't do it anymore.

>>11870889
Or...
>Hey, Sony, heard Nintendo turned you down... whatta buncha baka, amirite? How bout we finna team up, because our console division has no fuking idea what they are doing, oh, and also, our Western branch is dogshit, can we use yours?

>>11878390
Sounds like Sega World was a very Japanese thing that they didn't try to adapt to a foreign audience at all. They still do this kind of stuff to this day and the lines are still crazy.

>>11881003
Not taking sides, but what do you want them to do? Gaming is dead and there isn't even a safe bet way of making some kind of dogshit you can rely on to bring in money. They quickly learned they can't just pump out half-assed MGS stuff same as Capcom learned they actually had to try with RE and DMC or the brand would die quick. Even Final Fantasy isn't a safe bet or big return for how much time it takes to make and their only guaranteed hitmaker Nomura takes even longer to make games and they don't know how to accomodate to his demands so had to cut tons out of FFXV and KH3

>>11881190
Those kind of games are culturally removed from other arcade games and might have worked decades ago in America but now things are different and most foreign countries have a much more spread out infrastructure whereas in Japan families can go every weekend and friends can go any day after school and play the games at the huge mall ten or less minutes from their house, at most 30 mins unless you really live out of a city. For medal games, it's not just one unit, it is a whole area of them and you use the medals on multiple games and play some games with multiple people at once.

>>11887320
At the time, they didn't really have a choice. Somebody was going to port or make a new one for consoles, if you weren't first then you run the risk of being beaten to it, somebody else being established as the top name and taking the main market share, and you ending up even worse off in the end.

>>11870673 (OP)
I think they were nervous dedicated arcades would close in the future so having their own chain of amusement parks full of their machines seemed like a good idea.

They never got the pricing right >>11871692 and the parks never settled into the community and attracted local families. The parks were quickly branded as expensive tourist traps and were avoided until they disappeared a few years later.

>>11887364
>Somebody was going to port or make a new one for consoles
This makes no sense. If Capcom refused to port Street Fighter to consoles, then what can anyone do about it? Nothing.

>>11870673 (OP)
Sunken cost fallacy?

>>11889760
>I just learnt a new word so lemme use it on the 4chins

>>11888039
Then another company woukd either port their arcade fighter or make a new one for consoles and beat Capcom to it.

>>11871904
>and they are doing fine.
The baseball peddler created Treehouse and almost banned used games

>>11880231
Surprised? They used to be part of Paramount until they went indie and put their HQ in japan.

>>11880739
>And then the Japanese ran the Sega company in the ground and faced huge financial difficulties.
That's not the full story SoAkek, don't make me bring up what they did during the years of 32X

>>11890169
Bah! The 32x was barely a drop in the bucket compared to the massive spending Sega Japan did on other projects. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars on huge theme parks and arcades around the world.

They famously said statements like:

"We believe 3D games will remain a premium exclusive experience for customers at the arcade. While 2D games will be available for everyone at home."
(in 1993)

Or

"We believe customers will buy arcade ports for their home consoles to practice in the comfort of their homes. Then come to the arcade to play with friends for a more premium experience on arcade cabinets. And to also test out their skills against the competition. "
(in 1996)


Sega Jaoan was wrong on every single prediction they made!

>>11890190
Many major Japanese companies saw the fact that Japan was ahead of the world in the implementation of technology and also infrastructure and assumed the world would follow suit. To their defense, many across the world also thought so, which is why visions of the future such as the Blade Runner movie painted a picture of the world looking more like Asia and Japan a well as China being dominant. In turn, Japan also thought consumers would adapt to Japanese tastes and want complex products with tons of features that retained traditional aspects. They also did not forsee the de-socialization of society and the fact less and less people would go outside or to game centers or arcades, or socialize and play with new people irl. Another example of Japanese creators not meeting consumer demands is when Sony stuck to its old formula while Apple took off with simplified OS and things like the iPod and streamlined product lines where Sony to this day still has a million Xperia models with confusing product names and even I don't remember what phone I had or have now. Some Japanese countries made kneejerk reactions and that's how we got Spirits Within or FFXIII that fell flat. Then there are some companies that just stick to what they believe, which is really the most popular Japanese way of thinking, and would rather go out on their sword than compromise, or lose face. Due to this, Japan fell out of cultural dominance in many areas they focused on, and gained dominance in areas they didn't focus on as much. Nintendo from the Wii era onwards were one of thr only major companies to make a comeback and reestablish their spot.