Festival Disney
From Sega Retro
|
|
| Festival Disney |
|---|
| Location: Disneyland Paris, Paris, France |
| Opened: 1992-04-12 |
| Closed: 200x |
Festival Disney was an outdoor shopping, dining and entertainment complex situated on the premises of Disneyland Paris (then Euro Disney). Based on the successor Downtown Disney area of the company's pre-existing Walt Disney World park, it has been renamed Disney Village and remodelled since its April 1992 opening.
Upon its original opening in April 1992, Sega, through newly-acquired France-based distributors WDK, was able to supply and maintain a 800 square metre arcade area, featuring 220 coin-operated machines.[1] Effectively acting as the company's first European arcade test site for further expansion, machines such as the AS-1 were deployed during the following years.
Sega's former space is understood to have closed at some point during the late 2000s, and it is unclear if/when the company stopped supplying arcade machines to the space.
Contents
History
During the early 1990s, Sega's amusement operations division in Japan successfully opened numerous new-style amusement venues, for a time under the shortlived En-Joint concept.[2][3] Overseas operations had ceased in the United States after the December 1990 sale of the Time-Out chain, however by 1991, tentative plans had began to expand to further countries outside of Japan for the first time by utilising the new knowledge garnered from Japan. Groundwork for this was achieved by acquiring new distributors for Europe; Deith Leisure were bought in a joint venture with Namco during late December 1990 to establish a United Kingdom presence,[4] while France-based company WDK became a wholly owned Sega subsidiary in early 1992.[1][5]
At the same time, Disney were readying their second overseas theme park, Euro Disney, for opening in Paris, France. In the months leading up to its launch, Sega announced an agreement had been reached through WDK to create a 800 square metre arcade in the park's Festival Disney area, supplied with approximately 220 coin-operated machines.[1] This opened alongside the park in 1992, in effect becoming the first Sega arcade venue in Europe, though in comparison to following European ventures like Sega World Bournemouth and SegaFolies Marseille,[6] official branding appears to have been minimal to non-existent. In the following years, simulators such as the R360 and AS-1 were installed, as well as further Sega games regularly.
After the closures/buyouts of other venues operated in Europe and the consolidation of every country-specifc distributor to form Sega Amusements Europe by March 2000, the space at Festival Disney (now renamed Disney Village) had essentially became the last standing arcade to be ran by Sega in Europe.[7] Photos taken during the 2000s indicate Sega continued to supply machines on an official basis into the latter part of the decade, including a limited Super-Deluxe edition of Star Wars Trilogy Arcade based on The Ocean Hunter cabinets, however the original 800 square metre space is believed to have been closed some time after 2007.[8]
Videos
Coins
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 https://www.lesechos.fr/1992/03/sega-rachete-le-francais-w-dk-921897 (Wayback Machine: 2021-05-30 15:16)
- ↑ Game Machine, "1990-09-01" (JP; 1990-09-01), page 12
- ↑ File:SegaEnJoint JP Flyer.pdf
- ↑ Game Machine, "1991-02-15" (JP; 1991-02-15), page 14
- ↑ https://techmonitor.ai/techonology/sega_to_buy_french_wdk (Wayback Machine: 2021-06-25 01:11)
- ↑ https://techmonitor.ai/technology/bournemouth_gets_first_crack_outside_japan_at_segas_hot_multi_player_flight_simulator (Wayback Machine: 2021-06-25 01:17)
- ↑ https://onitama.tv/gamemachine/pdf/20000315p.pdf
- ↑ https://www.neo-arcadia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14168 (Wayback Machine: 2020-10-01 07:15)
| Sega-related venues in France |
|---|
| Centre Sega |
| Centre Sega Paris | Centre Sega Amiens |
| Other |
| Festival Disney | SegaFolies Marseille |