Arcades aren’t what they used to be, especially in the West. They’re looked upon as places for retro nostalgia, not where you’ll find some of the most interesting games available. But that’s where Japan has an advantage as some of the arcades are being used to test cutting-edge virtual reality games.
Japan’s arcade business, as measured by its manufacturer’s association.
Arcades, or “game centers” as the Japanese call them, are alive and kicking in Japan as I noticed in my whirlwind visits to Tokyo, Osaka, and Fukuoka last week. Many companies have exited the business as the market for arcades has sagged in the U.S. But in Japan, arcades still occupy a huge amount of real estate. Square Enix’s Taito has more than 138 arcades throughout Japan, and it’s just one of the companies in the business. Square Enix said that arcade sales were $360 million in the year ended March 2016, up 9.7 percent from a year earlier. One of the reasons? Foreign tourists like me.
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Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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