Sega plans giant new arcade in Japan

A new development by Sega will see the creation of a 30 billion Yen (225 million Euro) amusement centre in the Japanese port city of Yokohama, just a few miles down the coast from Tokyo, which will house entertainment machines and a movie theatre.

The new facility, which will be constructed on the Minato Mirai 21 reclaimed land area in Yokohama Bay, will span nine floors and will have 63,000 square metres of floor space in total.

Reports in Japan indicate that Sega may be considering moving its corporate headquarters from nearby Tokyo to the new facility - which is expected to dwarf Sega's previous headline arcade location, the Joypolis centre, which is also constructed on a reclaimed land island - namely Odaiba, in Tokyo Bay.

The decision to build the new facility in Yokohama, which won't be finished until early 2009, apparently came after the city's municipal government agreed to sell Sega a major area of city-owned property in the Minato Mirai 21 district.