Market Overview

The pachinko equipment market size (the total market size of pachinko machines, pachislot machines, and peripheral equipment) increased to 882,634 million yen, an increase of 112,300 million yen or 114.6% of the size of the previous fiscal year, based on manufacturers' sales. By product segment, the pachinko machine market generated 362,840 million yen, 88.4% of the previous fiscal year, while the pachislot machine market reached 349,400 million yen, 125.0% of the previous fiscal year, and the peripheral equipment market reached a remarkable 170,373 million yen, 212.3% of the previous fiscal year. While pachinko machines declined, pachi-slots and peripheral equipment grew tremendously. The decline in the pachinko machine market was for the second consecutive year, a reversal of a recovery trend in FY2020, partly influenced by continued strong demand for pachislot machines. Market expansion is expected from smart pachinko, an improved version of pachinko in terms of ball winning and game performance. 

On the other hand, the pachislot machine market, which has recovered from the pandemic crisis, looks promising for several years in FY2024 and beyond. This is expected to make the structure of popular smart pachislot games and unpopular pachinko games continue. 

In terms of peripherals in FY2023, although the markets for medal counting machines and medal dispensers declined from a year ago, other peripheral equipment expanded their market sizes. In particular, ball dispensers and smart gaming machine units have shown significant growth. In the case of ball dispensers, it should be noted that the market size for ball dispensers includes the cost of unit-related construction work and related products to fit into a parlor. The net market size for ball dispensers is shrinking. Therefore, the expansion of the ball dispenser market owes to unit-related construction work in conjunction with the increased number of smart pachislot machines.

*Smart pachislot games refer to digitized machines that use electronic tokens and dispense physical medals. As a result, users do not have to touch the game medals directly. The change in internal regulations will allow smart pachislot machines to be designed with a wider range of specifications compared to conventional machines, enabling the development of smart machines with a variety of game features.

Noteworthy Topics

Popularity of Smart Pachislot Games Led Stronger Demand for Pachislot Machines than Pachinko Machines

The pachislot sector, which had suffered from sluggishness since the end of Unit 5 machines, showed a sharp uptrend with the market launch of smart pachislot games in November 2022. Smart pachislot machines have shown favorable performance, as good game line-ups from the beginning are considered a positive factor. With continuing successive good game releases, the demand has shifted from pachinko to pachislot games.

Total unit sales of the top 10 pachislot machines reached 333,000 units in FY2023, or 30,000 units per machine. The solidity of the market can be seen from the fact that the top-tier models selected for play have reached a certain level, in addition to the increase in the sales volume of such top-tier models.

Future Outlook

Since the introduction of smart pachislot machines in FY2022, the industry conditions of pachislots improved rapidly. Prior to that, pachislot machine sales had been in a predicament, especially toward the end of Unit 5, and the transition to Unit 6, which had worsened the situation. At that time, pachinko parlors had increased the number of pachinko machines while reducing the number of pachislot machines in FY2021, because some pachinko machines contributed to increased sales for pachinko parlors.

However, the situation overturned at once in 2022. After the Golden Week holidays (at the end of April to the beginning of May) of the year, Unit 6.5 of pachislot machines emerged, allowing the freedom of gaming designs, and smart/intelligent pachislot was launched in the market. An influx of customers was seen to play pachislot instead of pachinko. All of a sudden, the pachislot sector started to thrive while the pachinko sector started to struggle. Within just a year, pachinko parlors started enhancing investment in pachislots while reducing the number of pachinko machines in FY2023.

Considering the industry conditions, the investment in pachislot is projected to continue with a focus on smart pachislot machines. Pachinko parlors are reassesing their customer reward restrictions in the current gaming environment where new game disciplines are introduced one after another. There is still room for the currently struggling smart pachinko to revive or even gain ground, depending on the future games to be introduced. Since there is no need to exchange the units when replacing smart pachislots to smart pachinko, or vice versa, pachinko parlors can respond quickly as needed. It is possible for industry to experience rapid trend changes at an unprecedented speed due to the introduction of smart/intelligent gaming machines.

Research Outline