Namco Bandai is closing between 50-60 arcades in Japan and they’re citing the Nintendo Wii as the blame for the closures. Essentially reports are stating they’re suggesting a lot of the games played in the arcades can now be played at home. By this we can only assume they mean light gun titles and other peripheral driven games, since home video game consoles of arcade quality are obviously not a new thing.

It seems a little silly to lay blame at the foot of the Wii, as someone who lived through the birth of home gaming and the arcade era, it’s easy to see that home consoles have had the ability to mimic arcade titles for many years now, certainly previous to the arrival of the Wii. Perhaps it’s more down to the social aspects people used to get at the video arcade, now being transferred to the realm of online gaming, albeit without the face to face interactions?