Toyomaru Industry (豊丸産業), one of Japan’s longest-running pachinko machine manufacturers, has stopped its pachinko business.

The Nagoya-based company announced that operations would end on 31 July 2026. Its eastern and western Japan sales offices, located in Tokyo and Osaka, will close on 31 August.

For players outside Japan, Toyomaru may be a relatively unfamiliar name. Within the industry, however, the company developed a reputation for machines that did not always follow the dominant formulas used by larger manufacturers.

Its best-known series, Nanasy (ナナシー), first appeared in the 1990s and became associated with an unusual game structure that differed from conventional digital pachinko machines. Toyomaru subsequently released machines based on licensed entertainment properties alongside more experimental original concepts.

The decision ends more than six decades of pachinko machine development.

The announcement needs to be interpreted carefully.

Toyomaru has said it is stopping its pachinko business. It has not announced the liquidation of the entire company, bankruptcy proceedings or the immediate termination of every other activity.

Machines already installed in pachinko halls may continue operating for as long as their regulatory inspection periods and the decisions of individual operators allow. Toyomaru also intends to provide maintenance, replacement parts and administrative support temporarily, with customers to be informed separately about the eventual end of those services.

After the Tokyo and Osaka offices close, enquiries will be handled through a support function based at the company’s Nagoya headquarters.

Toyomaru has also developed welfare and rehabilitation equipment, including products such as Torepachi (トレパチ), which adapts pachinko-style interaction for exercise and care environments. Maintenance for existing welfare products will continue, although new orders have been temporarily suspended while the company reviews its operating structure.

The result is a controlled withdrawal, rather than an abrupt disappearance.

Toyomaru’s departure matters because it shows how contraction is spreading through the industry’s supply chain.

At the end of 2025, Japan had 6,464 licensed pachinko and pachislot halls, 242 fewer than a year earlier. Compared with 2019, almost one-third of the country’s venues have disappeared.

The change is even more pronounced for traditional pachinko machines.

Japan ended 2025 with approximately 1.87 million pachinko machines installed, a decline of nearly 98,000 during the year. Pachislot moved in the opposite direction: its installed base increased slightly to approximately 1.36 million machines.

This distinction is important. Japan’s gaming-hall sector is shrinking, but not every product category is contracting at the same speed.

Smart pachislot machines—スマスロ—have helped generate new investment and player interest. Traditional pachinko manufacturers must compete for space in fewer halls while facing development costs, regulatory testing and an increasingly concentrated market.

For a smaller manufacturer, producing an original machine is only the beginning. It must also secure distribution, persuade halls to allocate floor space and generate enough player demand before the next product cycle begins.

As venues consolidate around proven titles and larger suppliers, the economics become progressively harder for companies operating outside the industry’s dominant groups.

Toyomaru is not the first established name to retreat.

Nishijin ended its pachinko business in 2023 after approximately 70 years, citing worsening market conditions. Toyomaru’s withdrawal three years later reinforces the possibility that Japan’s manufacturer base will continue to consolidate.

Large companies with valuable entertainment licences, extensive sales networks and sufficient capital to develop smart machines are better positioned to absorb unsuccessful releases. Smaller manufacturers have less room for error.

That does not mean pachinko is about to disappear. Millions of machines remain installed, and the sector continues to form a distinctive part of Japan’s entertainment economy.

But the composition of the market is changing.

The companies that survive may increasingly be those capable of supporting expensive development cycles, securing recognised intellectual property and selling machines at sufficient scale. The more that happens, the harder it becomes for unusual independent manufacturers to retain space.

Toyomaru’s significance was never based purely on market share.

The company represented a strand of pachinko design that was willing to produce unconventional machines for audiences not always served by the largest manufacturers. Nanasy became memorable precisely because it did not feel like every competing product on the floor.

Its departure therefore removes more than another supplier. It narrows the range of companies able to experiment within Japan’s regulated machine market.

Toyomaru’s final decision should not be read as proof that all Japanese gaming halls are collapsing. Pachislot’s recent performance makes that conclusion too simplistic.

It instead reveals a more selective transformation: fewer halls, fewer traditional pachinko machines and greater pressure on independent manufacturers—while capital and player attention increasingly move towards the strongest suppliers and newer machine formats.

Toyomaru has stopped producing pachinko machines. The larger question is how many distinctive manufacturers the market can still support.

East Asia Reports
Web: eastasiareports.com · Email: [email protected]
Author — Adrià Mas Rodríguez