SEGA sells last shares in arcade hall division

SEGA has sold its last shares in arcade subsidiary SEGA Entertainment to Genda. In 2020, it already sold 85 percent of this subsidiary to the same party due to disappointing turnover due to the corona virus. Now it’s the turn of the other 15 percent.

Although the arcade halls still retained the SEGA name after the first sales round, that will no longer be the case. Instead of SEGA, they will be renamed GiGO; that’s the name of some other former SEGA locations and stands for Get Into the Gaming Oasis. The change of names will take place over roughly the next year and a half.

The name GiGO will now also become a trademark of Genda, which will continue as Genda GiGO Entertainment. Genda thus owns 100 percent of the arcades that SEGA has set up, reports Famitsu, among others. It is unknown how much money was involved in the sale.

SEGA was a major player in the arcade market in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in Japan. Genda CEO Takashi Kataoka says on Twitter that Genda thanks SEGA for its 56 years of gaming history and that the company “hopes that the arcades will be an oasis where people can quench their thirst with realistic entertainment.”

In 2020, SEGA reported to Famitsu that it was still developing and producing arcade games; it may still continue to do so. SEGA is also active as a publisher of games on several platforms.