Arcadia magazine going bimonthly

It's announced yesterday that the Japanese arcade gaming magazine Arcadia will change from releasing monthly to bimonthly, starting from April 30 (June issue). They explained that the change is due to the growth of arcade gaming in Japan and they want to cover more games, more genres. The magazine is expected to have 60,000 copies printed.

The porting of the popular fighting games to the home consoles is always a big problem but game companies like Sega and Square Enix, who also own game centers, are there to make sure the business doesn't go down. Square Enix had come up with arcade games that literally can't be played on consoles, such as Lord of Vermillion and Gunslinger Stratos. Lord of Vermillion is a trading card game that plays like action game – players have to move their physical cards on the sensor board to move their characters on the screen. Gunslinger Stratos is a 4 on 4 light-gun third-person shooter where in-game weapons change accordingly to how the guns (two guns per player) are handled.

However, Arcadia going bimonthly (once every 2 months) suggests that the magazine has had poor sales, because the price will still be the same, meaning the number of pages will probably be the same. It looks like they'll focus more on Arcadia Extra (guidebook dedicated to one game).

Arcadia was launched in 1999. E-book version (via bookwalker.jp) was launched in 2011. Daigo Umehara is one of the columnists since 2009 and the compilation of his column was released in February this year.