SegaWorld
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SegaWorld is a name referring to one of a number of theme parks and arcades worldwide, including installations in the United Kingdom, China and Australia. The parks sought to promote Sega games while providing entertainment based on its licenses, while the Japanese Sonictown (sometimes otherwise known as 'SegaWorld') created an entire world based on Sonic the Hedgehog alone.
[edit] SegaWorld London
London's SEGA theme park kicked off at the height of its mascot Sonic the Hedgehog's popularity around 1994. Housed in the Piccadilly Trocadero, it featured a number of indoor rides, coin-op arcade machines and a SEGA merchandise shop. It was heavily promoted in the UK's Sonic the Comic, where competitions were run to win items from the SegaWorld shop, and out on the streets where tokens could often be found for discounted or free entry, and free t-shirts were distributed. The loss-making venture eventually closed and was taken over by new management who closed several floors and renamed the establishment "FunLand". The name SegaWorld now only refers to the basement arcade in Hamleys' Regent Street branch. It features none of the rides and entertainment of its Trocadero predecessor but remains a SEGA-dedicated coin-op den.
However, more recently, the basement level in Hamleys has been stripped of its coin-op machines, and replaced with a franchised 'Game' outlet.
[edit] Sega World Sydney
[edit] SegaWorld Shanghai
Little is known of Shanghai's SEGA arcade, other than it is so far reported to be the only SegaWorld still in operation. According to reports sent into Sonic cultist site UK Resistance [1], the basement arcade in Xu Jia Hui Shanghai still operates a series of UFO Catcher machines and some of the more popular SEGA arcade machines. Apparently the arcade is still rather popular with shoppers, and remains adorned with artworks and fascias dating back over a decade, on top of a largely Dreamcast-era look in meeting with some of the newer machines. Games featured in the arcade, identified by photographic records, include OutRun, Time Crisis, House of the Dead and an installation of the cult oddity Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car for younger patrons.
