Sega Japan to begin big push for card-based coin-op games

While I have never played a card-based coin-op game, I do find the idea fascinating as it capitalizes on something which continues to have a strong following among kids who enjoy both video games and card games. I would have thought that card games would have just been a passing fad but even at the mall where my biz is located they hold regular card-game tournaments. Sega created the card-based coin-op game but they have lost market share to competitiors in Japan and now they are promising to ramp up their developments in this sector to take the share back, according to this article. After reading this, I finally understood exactly what this recent announcement about a “double touch screen” style cabinet from Sega was all about.

While such games get most of their play in Asia, I am acutally surprised that Sega has not pushed the concept in other areas like the US where as I previously mentioned there are businesses setup for players to come in and play card games. Those same players usually like video games so it would seem to be a natural fit but perhaps market information says otherwise.

[Via AndriaSang] [Discuss on the Forum]

Discover more from Arcade Heroes

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

5 comments

arcads4ever June 19, 2009 at 9:39 am

sega’s WCCF was very popular at the time when released in the UK and I don’t see why all the machines are gone. if sega promoted this game more then people would know more about it and want to play. they used to be scattered all around the UK and had about 24 or possibly more. now there are only a few which includes londons trocadero and a few bowlplex’s. WCCF 05 06 used to be in namco wonderpark in meadowhall and when all the players who played this game found out about meadowhall booting namco out they were really upset and sad and they tried to psuade other people to have the machine like hollywood bowl but no one did unfortunatly. sega and other arcade companies should really tka advantage with the card system that cannot be replicated in the home (apart from sony’s eye of judgement but nothing more has been said) and try come up with ways that the home console can’t do. I would have thought because card games are very popular (particuarly with geeks,sorry about that) I’m suprised no one is looking at ways of using this methord of helping people get out more to arcades.

maybe an arcade company should come up with a cool anime that relates so much to an arcade game that requires you to go to the arcade to follow both the game and the anime series. bit like seg’as dinosaur king, they made a game of it and an anime but take more advantage of both the anime and arcade connection to each other.

editor June 19, 2009 at 11:37 am

first things first arcades4ever – Sega pulled support of WCCF a the licensing fees and card support proved problematic – also operators though finding the game popular (as with Derby Owner) were not happy at how much it cost to operate.

In Japan there are a number of card based games like WCCF (we call them satellite terminal games) – but the international trade dose not want to consider them They are even reticent against kid vending games.

Finally, I like your anima idea – though the DinoKing concept could be base described as this idea to a lesser scale.

arcads4ever June 19, 2009 at 1:36 pm

but since it was proved popular they should have come up with solutions to the matter and come up with simular technology thats cheaper and more reliable. as for the liencence fee I don’t see why they can’t either scrap it or make it more affordable to operators of the machines. what they should do with the liencence is e.g. take 20% of whats made on the machine so even if they don’t make much they won’t make a profit no loose much revenue either. I wouldn’t be surprised though if the machine used a lot of power and I bet it isn’t cheap either which is another plus to not making much on the machine.

I have another idea that could be applied to arcade games. shows like britains got talent gathers alot of people to watch and if arcade companies can come up with something like that that would certainly make business profitable, something that requires a big crowd of people that makes them want to join in that anyone can understand much like the wii sports series etc… and board games like monopoly and/or quiz shows like wheel of fortune and/or mario party series all in one and/or cross betweens etc..

editor June 19, 2009 at 6:57 pm

Funny that Aecades4ever – they did a game based Pop Idol (American version), but they had to abandon it for licensing problems after launching it at IAAPA!

I agree that Sega should have continued with the application in the UK, but there was a lot of politics in the company over supporting the operators in the UK. A move to self operation of amusement machines will change all this however.

arcads4ever June 19, 2009 at 8:33 pm

do you mean rawthrills american idol or namco’s Idol master back in 2004. I wondered why this game never came out overseas, did it ever get released in japan?

sega and other arcade companies really need to come up with better ideas and solutions for lincencing fees and support that can benifit both the operator and themselves when it comes to overseas marketing and talk with operators so they can work from operators ideas and points of view and how to improve their business stategy that everyones happy with. they need to come up with plans like this and other thats a one size fits all sort of business.

its no wonder we don’t see many games come out of japan other than the usual stuff (though not in a bad way) and I would like to see fresh ideas make it to the rest of the world rather than just in japan all the time.

does anyone know when derby owners club is going to be released because it was quite popular here and I don’t see why they can’t release DOC 2008 feel the rush.