UPDATE: Bandai Namco NOT Halting Arcade Development

We’ve all heard the phrase: “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Unfortunately exaggerated death reports of the arcade industry have existed in some form or another since the industry crash back in the 80s. And yet…new games and venues mysteriously keep showing up regardless. Odd how that works.

So for a new arcade ‘death’ claim, it was mentioned yesterday that a report was floating around the internet about Bandai Namco having halted their arcade developments due to poor market performance. I saw a number of people on social media afterwards lamenting about the demise of Namco in the arcades but where that was the only source of the claim, it was worth doubting. For something that would be a major shake-up in our business, none of the Japanese arcade gaming websites were reporting that news. It also goes against the news of the Battle Pod & Tekken 7 Summer updates (both of which were unveiled yesterday) and that the company plans on showing a bunch of new games to the Japanese market later this week at the JAEPO 2016 event. The latter is especially something you would not do if you were canning all developments.

I reached out to Frank Cosentino, Senior Vice President of Bandai Namco Amusements America for comment. He responded:

Either that statement [from Nikkei] is “lost in translation” or just a misprinted error.

As you correctly noted, many new titles on the way

So there you go. Mr. Cosentino also confirmed that they will be at Amusement Expo 2016 in Las Vegas, NV, which starts exactly a month from today. Hopefully this news gets out, so feel free to share.

Since we’re on the subject about arcade business, I’m elated to report that at my own arcade this past weekend was a record breaker in its 7 1/2 year existence. It was the best weekend it has ever recorded for sales. Note: I don’t have any ticket games whatsoever. It’s 95% video, which by conventional wisdom I’ve heard repeated over and over ‘isn’t supposed to work.’ Arcades live!