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The Lost Sega Worlds

Discussion in 'General Sega Discussion' started by Black Squirrel, Nov 10, 2020.

  1. Ted909

    Ted909

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    And another one to add to the "notable people who've been to Roppongi GiGO" pile - Violet Berlin at around the 9 minute mark in this episode of Bad Influence:
     
  2. Ted909

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  3. Pirate Dragon

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    I remember this one from the mid-late 90s, but I don't think I ever went inside, it was near Bristol City's stadium at Ashton Gate. The building is long gone, replaced with residential buildings. It was kind of on it's own, on a busy carriageway only easily accessible by car, the area was more industrial than residential at the time.

    It was up against Avonmeads, where a Showcase Cinema opened up in 1994 with a bowling alley too. That was also an industrial area, but there were also restaurants and other venues there. Then in 1998 a similar venue to Avonmeads opened at Cribbs Causeway with cinema, bowling, restaurants etc. These other venues were far more appealing than Arena One, and still exist to this day. There was an arcade at Avonmeads, but I forget the name. Cribbs Causeway had Dave and Busters, but that seems to have closed in 2000.

    This would be the back of it now, going by memory (front view is obscured by trees);

    [​IMG]

    Incidentally good early 90s gaming arcades in Bristol that I used to frequent;

    Spellbound in Clifton Down ... now a posh butchers. I used to spend a lot of time on Road Blasters in there even if it was probably quite old by then ... so much that it was one of the first import games I got for Mega Drive when it came out. Also tons of time on Street Fighter II 2 player when that came out.

    Golden Nugget in Stokes Croft ... now a Jamaican restaurant (good food). They had 4 player Turtles which was good fun with friends. I remember one of them got mugged in there though, these weren't Sega Parks!

    Mad Harrys in Broadmead ... this was the biggest with the best selection of new arcades. A friend had just bought a new pair of trainers and immediately wore them, putting his dirty old smelly pair in the new box. He put them on a pinball table whilst we had a game of Street Fighter, after we had finished someone had already stole them, which was quite amusing. This seems to still be there, although I don't know if it has closed down or not. Probably just fruit machines if it's still running.

    There were others, but mostly fruit machines in those.

    Weston-Super-Mare was always a good day out for the latest big machines. A short train ride. So many arcades there, including on the pier. I remember playing Sega's hologram Time Traveler there, along with some Virtual Reality tank/mecha game. We probably didn't get stuff like that in Bristol until the likes of Sega Park and Dave and Busters opened, but I was a bit old to be interested by then.
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2021
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  4. Ted909

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    Never been but I believe Weston was always very good for arcades; alongside the pier in the 80s and 90s, it had a Mr B's branch, who were also well-known at the time for their Metrocentre and Blackpool locations (they were namechecked in one or two arcade maps of the UK featured in gaming magazines). All three of them had R-360 machines - Blackpool's can be seen down here:



    Going back to Sega's venues, 64 Magazine seems to have ran a two page feature on them for four months in 2000, from issues 43 to 46 (all of which on the Internet Archive):

    [​IMG]

    Why? At a guess, the N64 was at the arse end of its life and they had to fill the pages up somehow. There's also a connection here in the publisher - another Paragon-published title, Dreamcast Magazine, ran frequent features on Sega Park venues too, and connecting this with the fact that things like this made it into both of their pages leads me to believe they had some sort of promotional deal with Leisure Exchange going on -

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    There's also a list of locations in each of these, which would be more useful if it wasn't for the flyer posted a few pages back in here featuring the very same ones (though at least this does corroborate them).
     
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  5. Asagoth

    Asagoth

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  6. Ted909

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    Perhaps stetching this thread's remit, but presumably Sega Amusements Europe once had an officially supplied game room named Sega Village on at least one cruise ship. After basic digging I can't find anything else about it - hopefully someone else can:

    [​IMG]
     
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  7. Asagoth

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  8. Ted909

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    Google kept throwing up results for The Ocean Hunter and an unrelated Sega arcade which still seems to be situated in Exmouth, UK - until I found this (scroll down a fair bit for the report):


    A massive generalisation on the part of Justin Burke there, as there were still many Sega venues outside of Europe handled by the American and Asian divisions after Leisure Exchange's licence to use their name ran out (and even then they didn't change Colindale or Southampton), but this pretty much confirms it as Sega Amusements Europe's first operational arcade after the demise of the Sega Parks and Worlds.

    Unfortunately it must've lasted barely more than two years, as the Wikipedia page for Ocean Village claims that the cruise line ceased operations after late 2010, and Ocean Village Two herself was scrapped just last year after its ownership changed a few more times. Interesting to have this info though - now we know neither the Prize Zone or Active Zone venues were their true return to this sector :)
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2021
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  9. Asagoth

    Asagoth

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    Saved... Sega Retro was turned on ... you can now create a page if you want... ;)
     
  10. Ted909

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    I now believe the above photo was taken on the original Ocean Village ship, not Ocean Village Two; the latter made its final voyage on 22 October 2009, while the photo of Sega Village is dated as 9 August 2010. The press release above only makes mention of Ocean Village Two receiving an arcade, but I would think it is safe to assume both had one - currently rewriting everything I had typed up so far...
     
  11. Asagoth

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    Found this... I'm not sure if there's anything else...
     
  12. Asagoth

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  13. Ted909

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    The only captures are from 2007, so it still could've been implemented during the three years afterwards - indeed, the photo's metadata states that the one pic we have of a Sega Village in any form was taken in 2010 after Ocean Village Two had taken its last voyage, so I'm fairly certain it was the other one. Happy to be proven wrong though.
     
  14. Asagoth

    Asagoth

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    No worries ... if there's something wrong... you can always correct it later... nevertheless, is a good finding... you did a good job ;) ...
     
  15. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    Some hints on Roppongi GiGO while it's on my mind - I ran into a thing about Roppongi a few weeks ago, and apparently it's a district of Tokyo known for its nightlife. It's got the strip clubs and hostess bars and used to have a strong Yakuza presence, which might explain why there was an age restriction. And it's also the home to Kamurocho Roppongi Hills.

    Basically the clientele are students, businessmen and expats, typically from the US.

    The fictional district of Kamurocho is based on the real-life district of Kabukicho. There is no "Kabukicho Hills" - the influence came from outside
     
  16. Ted909

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    According to Login Magazine it was the first location to get Virtua Formula, shortly after its showcase at AOU 1993. Incidentally VF's own page claims Yokohama Joypolis was where it debuted for whatever reason, will get round to changing that soon
    [​IMG]
    This also must be why Roppongi GiGO was specifically mentioned in Beep's coverage of Hakkeijima Carnival House - I couldn't exactly tell with what little translation skills I have, but it was likely talking about how the venue had the larger 8 player version.
     
  17. Black Squirrel

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    One for the collection:
    [​IMG]
    There's a "By-Tech Sega" in the second mission of Dynamite Duke on the Mega Drive.
     
  18. Ted909

    Ted909

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  19. Ted909

    Ted909

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  20. Ted909

    Ted909

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    Very confused by what seems to be a couple of Joypolis venues which were once in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and was previously mentioned in the other thread:
    [​IMG]
    After digging a little deeper I'm starting to suspect that they may well have been a case of independent operators either licencing the Joypolis brand out from Sega, or nicking it illegally - I can't find any indication that Sega themselves were even partly involved, with zero logos to be found on what little documentation remains, and considering the significance of the Joypolis venues it's unusual that there's almost nothing on it anywhere
    [​IMG]
    Whoever was running it must've done well for at least a number of years, as there's videos of DDR tournaments held at one of the two locations in 2002 (thank the research I've done on the global scenes of that game for this):

    Muddying the waters further here is the fact that Brazil had also at least one officially operated GameWorks venue in the late 90s - the location in Rio even had a number of rides that would normally be found at Sega World or Joypolis venues

    and going back to the theory that it was unofficial usage of the brand by independent operators for their own arcade - it wouldn't be the only example either
    [​IMG]