8/8/2006

Newsweek has published an article on gaming arcades in Japan, comparing them to America’s arcade culture.

There are 9,500 arcades in the country with more than 445,000 game machines made by Japanese companies like Namco and Capcom, says Masumi Akagi, publisher of Japan’s Game Publisher magazine. In the U.S. of course, the story is much different–arcades are a rapidly dying breed with only about 3,000 in operation down from 10,000 a decade ago.” … “So this is what we are missing in America, with our arcades abandoned by the big entertainment and game companies and converted into Baby Gaps. Japan’s “quarter kids” have grown up and are still having fun… Yet there’s evidence that the country is ambivalent about its arcades. Japan is facing a looming demographic nightmare.”

I loved spending time in the arcades in Japan. There were often fanatics that would pull off perfect scores on the most difficult levels of games like Drum Master, and do so in front of a crowd. There were puri kura machines to record the day’s memories. There were plenty of UFO catchers to win some kawaii prize that you couldn’t dream of getting in Australia. All in all, plenty of fun. I hope they never die.

Links:
Newsweek, via Jean Snow