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Sega Merges With Pachinko Company Sammy
conform writes "The New York Times reported today that Sega Corporation (the Japanese parent company) has merged with Sammy Corp, a vendor of pachinko machines. The Sammy side of things are expected to dominate post-merger operations, and will likely shift Sega operational focuses back to the arcade market. Also, the end of the article notes in passing that SquareSoft has been aquired by rival RPG manufacturer Enix."
Sammy has done a bit more than just Pachinko, notably the very fun shooter, Viewpoint : Some sammy games emulated in mame
EA and SquareSoft have a publishing deal, and that's all (that I know of -- EA very likely owns some stock in Square, but certainly not enough for a controlling interest). Sony owns a minority interest in the company, after bailing them out from the Final Fantasy Movie failure (sad, really, because the movie had much promise but didn't deliver). And now Enix and Square merged, with Enix likely to be the dominant side of the merger. However, this is a dupe in a way, though it would've better been noted as an item in Slashdback. "Hey, remember that article about Enix and Square merging? Well, they've done it!" Or something like that.
This isn't a particularily stunning move (that SOMEONE would take an interest in Sega), as Sega has been a target for quite some time. Sega has been bleeding money - earning less than expected even though they ceased hardware production.
The reason? Poor sales of the "2K" sport series, combined with heavy marketing of the series. They've been unable to dethrone EA, even though they're producing quality product.
Personally, I've got a soft spot for Sega because of Phantasy Star and "blast processing".
Here's a good Genesis game (Thunder Force III): Review.
Video Game News, FAQs, etc
It's a Japanese variation on pinball, used as a form of automated gambling. It was huge in Japan in the 70's/80's, and still big today, though less so.
If I recall correctly, Nintendo's foray into video games grew out of their interests in pachinko.
I'm pretty sure that Squaresoft wasn't acquired by Enix. Rather Square (not Squaresoft) merged with Enix. As I recall this was a long time ago and there was a large fight over stock prices. Square's stock only got about 60 some cents to Enix's dollar in the new company, making square stockholders quite angry. The dispute was settled about a month ago.
I wonder what percentage of Sammy is:
Supported by debt backed up by Microsoft (This in regards to speculation on what japanese entity is benefitting from $590 million insured by Microsoft in their last quarterly statement.)
Run by North Koreans. (note: not a Troll! It is well known that most Pachinko parlors in Japan are run by North Korean families (think: mafia), for the purpose of exporting cash to North Korea.
"Pachinko for the XBox, great, what shall we call it?"
"How about AI Pachinko."
"We'll get sued, but I like it..."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's kind of a pinball slot machine. You use little steel balls instead of coin tokens.
Hell, why not just try it and find out.
Close. Nintendo started out making playing cards for gambling. They may have made pachinko machines for a while, but cards were their bread and butter for many years.
hey,
i built it using an mk2 cab i purchased off a friend for $300, a pc w/ a duron 1300, 512mb ram, and a trident blade t64 video card. interfacing between the pc's ps2 port and vga out with the joysticks, buttons, and arcade monitor done largely with the help of andy warne's j-pac.
all games run perfectly, with the exception of newer 3d additions to mame, such as cruis'n world. i've done a/b comparisons between mk2 running off the actual game board and emulated with MAME, and i cannot tell the difference.
it took a lot of work to get it right, but it was definately a labour of love. the hardest part was getting my video card to output at low horizontal refresh rates and resolutions that are compatible with both the monitor and various games - but you can now bypass all this hassle by purchasing andy warne's new arcadeVGA, a new radeon-based video card made for outputting video compatible with 15khz arcade monitors! no special software or configuration, you just pop this into your pc and you're all set. i wish this card was available 4 months ago when i got started.
good starting points:
Build Your Own Arcade Controls
J-Pac and ArcadeVGA
Happ Controls (however you can save some $$$ by not getting it from their online store, and finding a local distributor)
good luck!