Why Japan's Arcades Came Back Through Oshi-Katsu: Prize Games, Limited Plushies and Crane-Game Chains

In Japan, a gēmu sentā (game center) is more than a few claw machines by the mall exit. Crane machines fill whole floors, and the prizes inside are often character plushies and acrylic stands. Store-exclusive prizes and collabs are also a way to bring a franchise’s fans through the door, much like the limited merch drops that K-pop and anime fans already chase, except that here you have to win the item, not just buy it.

Unlike ordering merch online, a crane game makes the play itself, the fight to win the prize, part of the product. That idea explains almost everything that follows. Using figures and case studies, we look at how each company pairs prizes with ways to play, and why the format has found a second life through oshi-katsu, the practice of actively supporting a favorite person or character.

Words to Know First

In Japanese arcades, the items you can win from a crane game are called puraizu (prizes). They are mostly plushies, figures and acrylic stands made for arcades, not goods sold in ordinary stores. A few other terms come up throughout this article.

The Numbers: About 70% of Sales Are Prizes

According to the fiscal 2023 edition of the amusement industry survey report (in Japanese) by the Japan Amusement Industry Association (JAIA), the amusement industry was worth ¥720 billion (roughly $4.8 billion), up 5.0% from the previous year. That breaks down into ¥538.4 billion in arcade operation sales and ¥181.6 billion in equipment sales.

On how much of that is prizes, the industry outlet gamebiz (in Japanese) cited the JAIA survey to report that prize-game sales in fiscal 2023 were ¥364.3 billion (roughly $2.4 billion), about 68% of the ¥538.4 billion in arcade operation sales. Nikkan SPA! (in Japanese) also cites this figure from the same survey. Prizes generate more than two-thirds of sales.

There is one more constraint to keep in mind: a price cap on prizes. Crane-game prizes are limited to items with a retail price of roughly ¥1,000 or less. The rule comes from the National Police Agency’s guidelines for applying Japan’s amusement business law, and JAIA asks operators to follow it (JAIA, in Japanese). All product planning in the prize business happens inside that line. The industry’s central puzzle is how to make something worth ¥1,000 or less that fans will spend several thousand yen to win.

GiGO: Rotating Limited Prizes Every Month

Attack on Titan / SAKAMOTO DAYS

• Aim: Keep drawing fans of existing franchises to stores with “you can only get this here” exclusivity
• What they did: From September 20 to October 19, 2025, GiGO Group stores nationwide ran GiGO-exclusive prizes using newly drawn Attack on Titan illustrations: four big diorama acrylic figures and four B2 tapestries (PR TIMES / GENDA GiGO Entertainment, in Japanese). From November 15 to December 14 came a SAKAMOTO DAYS campaign. Stores and the online crane game “GiGO ONLINE CRANE” offered exclusive acrylic stands and big cushions, along with collab food and purchase bonuses, and pop-up stores opened at GiGO Main Store Ikebukuro and GiGO Osaka Dotonbori Main Store from December 20, and at GiGO Fukuoka Tenjin and GiGO Market Square Sasashima from January 23, 2026 (PR TIMES, in Japanese)
• The Lab’s take: Side by side, the two campaigns show a shift in GiGO’s approach. Attack on Titan was prizes alone; SAKAMOTO DAYS was a full package of prizes, food, merch and pop-ups. On the same monthly or every-other-month cycle, GiGO is leaning toward designs that capture dwell time and spend per customer. The ¥1,000 cap applies only to prizes. Food and merch sit outside it, and that is where the room to grow is

Taito: Moving Toward Experiences That Extend the Visit

• Aim: Not to end at winning a prize, but to give people more than one reason to visit through content that keeps them in the store longer
• What they did: From May 2, 2026, Taito Stations across Japan and “Jigoku no Taito Station Kurayami Yuenchi” (a dark amusement park-themed Taito Station) ran a real-life puzzle game and limited menu for Paranormasight. From July 4 to 31, Taito Stations and their adjoining crepe shops ran a collab campaign for Yomi no Tsugai (PR TIMES / Taito, in Japanese)
• The Lab’s take: Real-life puzzle games pair well with crane games, because both leave you with the sense that “I solved it” or “I won it myself.” A puzzle game also has a predictable duration, which makes crowds easier to plan for. With the adjoining crepe shop in the mix, we read Taito as widening its definition of a store from a place where prize machines line up to a place where you spend time

AEON Fantasy: Faithful Reproduction, Plus Stores and Online Together

• Aim: Meet fans’ buying standards with finished goods of real quality, and reach fans who live far away
• What they did: From October 17, 2025, Molly Fantasy and PALO stores ran the second round of limited prizes for the idol group =LOVE, offering plushies and puppets that reproduced even the costumes and hairstyles (PR TIMES / AEON Fantasy, in Japanese). From July 3, 2026, four limited prize items for the film Toy Story 5 rolled out in stores and on the online crane game “Molly Online”
• The Lab’s take: Idol plushies are a genre where a drop in fidelity instantly cuts the rating. Going as far as costumes and hairstyles meant choosing the hardest direction within the price cap. Running an online crane alongside removes the “I gave up because there’s no store near me” problem: scarcity comes from exclusivity, while fewer fans are lost for geographic reasons. Doing both is becoming the standard form of recent prize rollouts

From Pachinko Parlor to Crane Specialty Store: Maruhan East Japan’s “ME TOKYO”

• Aim: With the number of pachinko stores falling, shift resources to a crane-game specialty format with a high repeat rate
• What they did: Maruhan East Japan runs crane-game specialty stores such as “ME TOKYO.” It narrowed its target to Gen Z women aged 18 to 24.
• Result: At “ME TOKYO,” more than 80% of visitors come from that target group. At suburban stores aimed at families, a repeat rate of 70-80%, above pachinko’s 50-60%, can be expected, Nikkan SPA! reports (in Japanese; May 16, 2026)
• The Lab’s take: This case shows that crane games are not a device made only for oshi-katsu. Suburban stores centered on food and daily necessities are the opposite of a glamorous IP collab, and yet their repeat rate is expected to exceed pachinko’s. The act of “winning” itself brings people back, and IP (the licensed franchise) is an amplifier layered on top. Design a store around oshi-katsu alone and the customers vanish the moment the IP’s popularity fades

SEGA: Making the Brand and the Machine Themselves the Oshi

At AMUSEMENT EXPO 2025, held at Tokyo Big Sight from November 14, 2025, SEGA FAVE, a Sega group company, staged “UFO CATCHER IMMERSIVE” and “UFO CATCHER MUSEUM” to mark the 40th anniversary of the UFO CATCHER. On July 10 of the same year, its newest machine, the “UFO CATCHER TRIPLE TWIN 2,” began rolling out nationwide, linking a new model to an anniversary program (SEGA official, in Japanese).

The Lab’s take: The campaign invites fans to make an oshi of the 40-year-old game of “winning” itself, as a brand rather than an IP. What fans root for, it suggests, can extend beyond characters to devices and mechanisms.

Behind the Scenes: Inventory Optimization, the Other Competition

Behind the flashy collabs, prize allocation is being digitized. GENDA and GiGO launched “Project PAO (Prize Allocation Optimizer)” in March 2024 and deployed it fully that May. Ordering and store-by-store allocation had previously taken “four people two full days (the equivalent of 60 hours) working by hand on 30,000 rows in Excel.” Machine learning now automates it, and across roughly 300 stores nationwide allocation has been refined from case-level units to 0.25 units (Sakumaga, in Japanese).

With prize prices capped, the margin on each item is thin, so dead stock and lost sales eat straight into profit. Deciding which store gets how many is as decisive as deciding which IP to partner with.

Patterns That Work, and Patterns to Watch

From the fan side, the crane game carries a complicated mix of joy and frustration. Complaints about machines set to be “hard to win” are a familiar refrain, and fans enjoy the game knowingly, even though it can lead to spending more than they planned. Concern about excessive gambling-like appeal also comes up in industry columns. As with random goods and Ichiban Kuji, it is a shared homework assignment for any category that sells chance as a product.

For Companies: Seven Steps to Run an IP Collab With Prizes

1. Work backward from the broadcast or release schedule: Including rights negotiations and manufacturing lead time, starting several months ahead is a given
2. Decide what you won’t give up within the ¥1,000 cap: Size, material or fidelity? You can’t have everything
3. Choose the unit of exclusivity: Chain-exclusive, store-exclusive or online-exclusive. The stronger the scarcity, the more fans you miss
4. Run an online crane from the start: This keeps fans without a nearby store from being cut off as a side effect of exclusivity
5. Build spend per customer outside the prize: Food, merch and puzzle games sit outside the prize cap
6. Hold store-by-store allocation in numbers: Dead stock and lost sales cut straight into an already thin margin
7. Keep a safety net for when the IP rotates out: A prize mix that includes food and daily necessities is insurance against depending on one IP

You also need to understand how rights work. In the basic model, prize makers sign license contracts with the production committee (the consortium behind an anime) and the publisher, then supply the arcade operators. Some models, like the GENDA Group’s, integrate the process vertically with a character-merchandise subsidiary that handles everything from planning to supply.

Notes From The Oshi Lab: Letting Fans “Win” What They Could Just Buy

Some people spend several thousand yen to win merch they could order online. On economic logic alone, it makes no sense. Yet prizes account for about 70% of arcade operation sales, and we think that is because the process of winning is part of the product. The photo at the moment of the win, the story of how many tries it took, the reaction of the friend watching beside you: none of it is in the prize itself, but all of it goes home with you.

That is why design in this industry is so delicate. Make prizes easier to win and the sense of achievement disappears; make them harder and distrust lingers. The ¥1,000 price cap makes that tuning harder, and it also keeps companies from winning on sheer luxury. The =LOVE plushies were built down to the costumes and hairstyles because price is not where they can compete.

A report that suburban specialty stores where half the prizes are food can be expected to achieve a 70-80% repeat rate shows this structure well. People keep “winning” even without an oshi. With an oshi, there is one more reason on top. What we are watching is whether each company can protect that foundation, the plain pleasure of trying to win, once the flashy partnerships come and go. A store that leans too hard on an IP’s heat goes quiet the week after the collab ends. The strongest position is a store that draws crowds in months with no collab, and then puts limited prizes in it.

Related articles: What Is Oshi-Katsu Marketing? / What Is Ichiban Kuji? / What Are Random Goods? / What Is Nui-Katsu?