While the writing was practically on the wall for the better part of 15 years, one of the juggernauts of the arcade industry finally calls it quits. Once popular hangout and tourist spots throughout the 80's and 90's, arcades saw a general decline around the late 90's as home gaming became more robust and in demand. Due to the pandemic, in-person entertainment venues took considerable loss in revenue during lockdown and limited capacity. Arcades took such a critical blow, that Sega Sammy's popular Akihabara site Electric Town had to shut down in 2021. With total net losses, it became unsustainable to keep these iconic locations open.

After Sega sold 85% of its arcade and entertainment business to Genda Inc. in 2020, it pretty much sealed whatever remained of the industry's long-term fate. Genda now owns 100% of Sega's shares and will be rebranded as Genda GiGO Entertainment and all of Sega's game centers will be known as "GiGO". If there's any good news, Sega will continue to produce the GiGO arcade hardware.

“Sega stores across the country will be switching their store names to GiGO, to express our gratitude for Sega’s 56 years of history and our desire to be an oasis that quenches people’s thirst for real entertainment", spoke Genda GiGO chairman Hisashi Kataoka. “We will start with Ikebukuro, Akihabara, and Shinjuku. Then to the whole country.”

Towards the mid-60's, Sega shifted from producing machines for military bases to investing in manufacturing coin-op machines and capitalized greatly on the arcade gaming boom in the 1970's. By the 1980's, Sega was in the top 5 of arcade producers in the world as Sega's revenue reached $214 million dollars.