Atlus targeting females, seniors

Atlus is looking beyond the traditional demographic of 18- to 35-year-old males in an attempt to expand its arcade business in Japan. The company, which publishes the Summon Night and Battle B-Daman series in the US, says it will try to bring a wider diversity of customers into its 11 Japanese Game Panic arcades. The key to its strategy will be nostalgic and accessible games such as pinball, and Atlus has already acquired the distribution rights to an unspecified US pinball manufacturer, according to Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Twenty percent of the Japanese population is over the age of 65, an age group that game companies have been unable to successfully target in Japan.