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> "... built its business on pinball game machines and stumbled into the mobile phone security business almost by accident." (first paragraph) Pinball? In Japa
by BuildTheRobots 11y ago
> "... built its business on pinball game machines and stumbled into the mobile phone security business almost by accident." (first paragraph)
Pinball? In Japan? this isn't going to be pinball.
> "has been building pinball-like game machines found in Japan’s pachinko parlors since the 1970s" (third paragraph).
So it isn't pinball at all, it's pachinko. I know this is almost besides the point, but do Bloomberg really have such a low opinion of it's readers they think it's impossible to explain? To me at least it reads like:
"Tiger Woods, who rose to fame playing a football-like game across golf courses in America..."
- zimpenfish 11y agoA bit unfair since "pinball machine" used to refer to exactly what a pachinko machine is for a couple of hundred years before the "modern pinball" arrived. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball has the first bagatelle spring plunger around 1750 and flippers around 1947)
- ilzmastr 11y agoIMO it's a difference worth mentioning when pachinko is a big enough addiction there to make $187B in 2014 (vs US casinos $65.6B) and cause child deaths (while I was there, maybe is better now) https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1370&dat=19960702&id=4GUVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0goEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4883,345329&hl=en https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1370&dat=19960702&id=... I get a different sense of lucre when I hear "left the pinball industry for better margins" (pocket change gaming) vs left the gambling industry (life savings gaming)
- brador 11y agoThe revenues from Pachinko are complex and should not be directly compared to a trackable traceable business. Pachinko is the primary method for the Yakuza to launder money, there's a reason there's one on every corner. Cash for tickets, tickets for cash/prizes. Clean money. The addicts are a bonus.
- spaceisballer 11y agoWhile pachinko is huge in Japan, pinball is also very popular. Source: My Uncle worked for Williams pinball, and Japan is where they made most of their money.
- gr3yh47 11y agoWould love to see a non-anecdotal source on this, as my understanding is that pinball sales in the US absolutley dwarfs totals for the rest of the world. Not saying Williams didn't do lots of other sales in Japan, but pinball-as-in-two-ish-flippers pinball sales should be highest in the US.
- gr3yh47 11y agosource to my point: >Yuske believes that Japan’s love of video games is part of the reason why pinball has had trouble taking hold—why the game is more of a foreign curiosity for most than a cultural mainstay. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-silver-ball-planet-inside-a-japanese-pinball-arcade http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-silver-ball-planet-insi...
- XzetaU8 11y agoIt was huge in the past but nowadays shows signs of a dying industry. http://thisishansu.com/language/en/pachinko-gambling-business-decline/ http://thisishansu.com/language/en/pachinko-gambling-busines...
- jamespo 11y agoBecause worldwide recognition of golf is on a par with pachinko?
- bane 11y agoIt turns out Pachinko and Pinball are derived form the same ancestor. A surprisingly good history of it is here: http://elblancosretroworld.blogspot.com/2013/10/revenge-of-gatorpinball-revenge-of.html http://elblancosretroworld.blogspot.com/2013/10/revenge-of-g...
- mrspeaker 11y agoIt's kind of fair that they assume people might not know what pachinko is, but I'd say "slot machine" would be a far better comparison than "pinball machine".