GENDA SEGA Entertainment, formerly SEGA Entertainment, announced today (1/28) that following acquiring 14.9% of its own shares, it has changed the company name to “GENDA GiGO Entertainment Inc.”, and the brand of its chain of amusement park stores will also be changed from “SEGA”. “Renamed “GiGO”, officially announcing that the SEGA brand has completely withdrawn from the operation of large-scale video game amusement parks in Japan.
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SEGA is a veteran developer and manufacturer of large-scale video game amusement facilities and an amusement park operator. It has been involved in the operation of large-scale video game amusement parks since 1965, and established a business subsidiary in 1972. After several mergers and reorganizations, SEGA Entertainment finally integrated related businesses. It used to be the third largest operator of large-scale video game playground facilities in Japan, with a total of 199 entertainment facilities in Japan (193 large-scale video game playgrounds).
Due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, many amusement parks were closed, the number of visitors continued to decline, and the performance deteriorated sharply. Therefore, SEGA Sammy Holdings decided to withdraw from the operation of large-scale video game amusement parks in Japan. At the end of 2020, it will transfer 85.1% of SEGA Entertainment’s shares to GENDA, which operates a large-scale video game amusement park equipment rental business, and changed its name to GENDA SEGA Entertainment.
Although SEGA withdrew from the amusement park operation business, it still retained 14.9% of the shares, and the existing chain amusement parks continued to operate under the original SEGA brand. Now SEGA has sold the remaining holdings to GENDA, completely divesting from the company. The chain amusement parks previously operated under the SEGA brand will also be renamed GiGO, and the SEGA brand, which has been working in the field of large-scale video game amusement parks for more than 56 years, no longer exists.
