Used to love the mix of food, shopping, music and gaming all in the same spot. The remaining arcade hangouts in Tokyo are seedy (SHINJUKU), or boring, or filled with stinky nerds (Aki). Fucking sad but honestly tons of arcades are dying off.
Dammit, I’m going to Japan this November and this place was definitely on the list. Really sucks. Definitely sad to see it die.
was in there a month or so ago sad to see another one bite the dust
RIP
amen bro, I think I played more games of 3s at this place while fucked up than any other arcade in Tokyo
I think this arcade was still 50 yen per credit instead of 100 yen like the others?
i’m running out of time got go to japan before all the good arcades close down
A bit late on that.
Unless they provide an experience you can’t get at home AND aren’t annoyingly expensive and filled with people you wouldn’t hang around with during the day(!), I just don’t see most arcades surviving.
Heck, GameWorks in the US is pretty much dead now, too, and it had some star support behind it, too.
Home entertainment systems have gotten too good, arcade’s really haven’t been that innovative beyond short-fad games (Dance, Dance and light-gun shooters like House of the Dead), and society worldwide has gotten coarser.
I sure don’t want to pay to be insulted or harassed by other people in public, stand next to someone who hasn’t bathed in a week, OR feel ripped off by an entertainment experience that was anything but entertaining! That’s why I don’t go to the movies much, period… I can stay home, watch movies or play games in my jammies, and not worry about that the nonexistent idiot next to me is acting inappropriately in public. It’s far less stressful, cheaper, and generally more pleasant to stay home.
I like to get out, too, but it’s not like the 1980s and early 1990s. The home technology is so good that unless someone is willing to take a chance and use gear that won’t be homeward-bound for at least 5 years you’re not going to see much of any improvement in arcade games anymore. The consumer tech advances fast enough now to make “cutting edge” arcade hardware obsolete/regular within a year, 18 months tops.
One of the big draws of the old arcade times was playing on much better hardware than the crappy old Atari 2600’s, NES’s, Super NES’s, and Sega Genesis’s people had at home. I really believe the beginning of the end for arcades came around the time of the Big Two 32-bit systems (1994, Sony PS1 and Sega Saturn). Those were the first two affordable mainstream systems that could rival or better the arcade experience. Just about when those two systems appeared, better graphic cards for computers made market and began to rival Sega’s Model 1, 2, and 3 machines in performance for a fraction of the price. For less than $500, you had a graphics card to rival or better $10,000 arcade machines!
Even in the US we still have places like Dave and Busters and the occasional arcade that still manages to eke out an existence but unless you provide a unique experience you can’t get at home the business won’t make it…
arcades do provide a unique experience, but their target audience is socially inept nerds who dont want to leave their house anyway
yeah i don’t think anyone can say it isn’t a different experience.
you can’t really compare arcades in Japan and the US imo.
there are still little arcades all over the US in areas that see a lot of traffic in the summer (like LBI, the shore, etc.). at least in NJ there are.
but you don’t know about them because they don’t have tons of the latest fighting games. look at how much an SF4 machine costs.
i’m sure like someone said in this thread they are closing down because the property they own is probably worth a lot and they were made some kind of offer.
it could be due to all sorts of personal reasons, including just being old and tired of running an arcade.
oh well, maybe someone will open up a new place now.
If you think about it arcades are still bigger, it would be no problem to stuff more chips in there to make it better, bigger, badder.
the problem is hardware production sky rocketed and that’s no longer possible.
Kaikans last day is today. I’ll get some pics!
yup, rising hardware costs are a huge hurt (I’ll bet SF4 cost at least 20 times the cost of SF2 machines when they were new even adjusted for inflation), and it doesn’t help that most people think anything beyond 25 cents per play is a rip off
Shouldn’t this mean you guys in Japan should be calling dibs on the cabs and making offers?
Last hours now. Feel like an agony. Hope they were able to put together something great for 3rd STRIKE (ok, and CVS2) that Ryan can tell us about…
GoergeC you make me very sad. You probably can’t wait for the death of movie theaters too.
Arcades provide a chance for community that has very few of the filters that an online situation can offer. Actual people with real names and vulnerable squishy bodies that don’t stand up well to the repercussions of face to face shit talk. Also nothing can be blamed on lag and your paying money per game so people play hard which makes players in the group even stronger.
These days arcades aren’t about tech or bigger, badder entertainment. They are about the people that make time in their lives to take the trip and play together. Even get to know each other a little. Maybe grab a beer or J after the place closes to commiserate further. Not everyone will be your buddy but at least you have a genuine chance to connect. Many kids in the US are too worried about “getting my money’s worth” to see what they are losing.
Still haven’t been to Japan and I think I’d like Kaikan. So tragic. Hope you had a blow out good time Ryan.
I have some videos and pics I’ll upload soon!
Nakamura, Oryu, and myself got hella fucked up at Kaikan the last night. I didn’t get home till 9AM the next day. Went to work late at 1:00 and had the shittiest/zombie/ beer smelling day ever.
It was dope.
Interesting. I never knew it could be seen this way, no sarcasm.
Then again you said target audience. wwda.
Ha well I’m exaggerating cause people doggin on arcades gets me heated.
But I do think it takes more cojones than your average gamer seems to have to face the loses with an opponent sitting right next to or across from you, possibly talking shit.
Mikado in Takadanobaba and Game Versus are still alive and well for game specialists. Hopefully more people continue to support these places.
Btw seedy is dope. 
About the reasons arcades are closing is completely irrelevant in this thread. I made this thread to discuss Shibuya Kaikan and remember it for what it was. I could write a good post on why arcades are dying but I’ll save that for the “arcades are dying” thread.
Btw I thought the target arcade audience was Jon Conner and Budnick from T2.
Shibuya is cool cause of Maru-9 and all the gyaru.
Sorry for your awesome sounding arcade that closed =[
what happened to all the after burner machines anyway?