Many companies are scaling back in their operations right now and with some arcade companies are being affected as well. That includes Sega, which has announced that they will be “soliciting voluntary retirements” (aka trying to lay off) about 560 employees, cancelling some games (they said that this will affect both console and arcade titles) and closing some 110 of their 450 arcade stores in Japan. So with Sega scaling back like this, I think this should put to rest all of those silly rumors about Ringwide or Ringedge being some super secret home console system but I think that it still makes sense for them to keep their arcade hardware up-to-date. As a reminder, Sega is still making new games for arcades and honestly it’s unclear how much arcade development will be affected by this or if it is aiming more towards their console division.
[Via Wired] [Discuss on the Forums]
