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[bloke]

Ghost Squad looks totally awesome.

Ghost Squad
http://media.cheats.ign.com/media/691/691627/vids_1.html

Sega Golf Club
http://media.cheats.ign.com/media/691/691628/vids_1.html

Quest Of D
http://media.cheats.ign.com/media/614/614114/vids_1.html
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/544/544408p1.html *impressions*

 

[Nos_G]

Cool, Ghost Squad and Sega Golf Club looks awesome... d/l-ing the trailer for Quest of D now.

Out of the three though, Ghost Squad looks like it is going to the most fun.

Edit: Quest of D still looks a bit clunky...

 

[MightyHedgehog]

Nice. All three look good, especially Ghost Squad. Too bad I'll probably never have one of these close by in a decent arcade.

 

[sprsk]

Ghost squad proving once again sega are the arcade shoot em up masters

 

[jarrod]

Quest of D is Naomi 2 iirc, not Chihiro.

 

[cvxfreak]

Quest of D is Naomi 2 iirc, not Chihiro.

Yeah, I thought that too.

 

[dog$]

Nope it's Chihiro.
Got an Arcadia right in front of me here that says so...

 

[Prine]

Cool, so is Chichiro SEGA's board of choice atm?

 

[Hotsuma]

Cool, so is Chichiro SEGA's board of choice atm?

According to one of the AM2 guys, Chihiro delivers more bang for the buck. It's in Gamespy's AM2 interview.

 

[Lazy8s]

Yes, Chihiro gives them their preferred price/performance balance for showcase arcade titles.

Ghost Squad has the most impressive graphics engine I've seen, going far beyond even Virtua Cop 3.

 

[Wario64]

So what makes Ghost Squad special (gameplay wise)? The ability to change rate of fire and gaining more ammuination by killing enemies in the head? Any pedal action or is it just Virtua Cop-ish standard gameplay?

 

[ourumov]

I wonder what's the problem with Triforce...Nobody gives a fuck about it...

 

[bobbyconover]

Ghost squad proving once again sega are the arcade shoot em up masters

No way. Not until they top these bad boys:

 

[jarrod]

Nope it's Chihiro.
Got an Arcadia right in front of me here that says so...

Really? Good to know.

Cool, so is Chichiro SEGA's board of choice atm?

It varies by the team. Chihiro is definitely AM2's arcade board of choice right now though.

I wonder what's the problem with Triforce...Nobody gives a fuck about it...

Tri-Force is still getting few high profile games (Virtua Striker 4, Key of Avalon II)... but yeah, things went sour. Too bad as it was so promising upfront. Then Namco backed out (deciding just to stick with System 246), Capcom moved out of arcades (and switched TF projects like Z Gundam to S246) and Nintendo decided arcade R&D was a dead end... leaving just a few Sega teams to support it alone.

 

[doncale]

Nintendo's arcade efforts have never been extremely sucessful since the 1980s. I think the only other mild sucess was with Williams 32-bit boards that ran Killer Instinct I,II and Cruisin USA. could be wrong though.

 

[Lazy8s]

With the exception of Naomi 2 being displaced earlier than expected by Chihiro, things never really changed at SEGA regarding arcade hardware preference, and the move to Chihiro only happened because SEGA's third-party changeover made developing for Xbox-like hardware more applicable than developing for a Dreamcast-like architecture.

SEGA would of course prefer to juggle as few arcade systems to cover their needs as possible. Their involvement in TriForce was just part of a joint initiative to work with their arcade partners like Namco and to have an arcade variant of Nintendo's console for platform-specific projects like F-Zero. When SEGA's not been sponsered by a partner and has been able to pick an arcade board independently, they've mostly gone with Chihiro. TriForce has delivered top-end graphics and performance for them too, so it's not like it would be a big deal to them either way.

 

[doncale]

by early to mid 2006 Sega will, or should, be dealing with arcade boards based on the new consoles.

the new PowerVR Series 5 based board should be a stop gap, like NAOMI 2

 

[Hiro_Kunimi_80]

power Vr 5 board is vaporware

 

[doncale]

so was Model 3, Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, and every other console and arcade board, before they came out

 

[jarrod]

Sega & Sammy post Naomi family arcade board list (for fun)...

SYSTEM 246 (Namco owned, licensed from SCEI)
-Vampire Night (Wow Entertainment)

TRIFORCE (Nintendo/Sega/Namco co-owned)
-F-Zero AX (Amusement Vision)
-F-Zero AX: Monster Ride (Amusement Vision)
-Getikou Pro Yakyuu (Wow Entertainment)
-The Key of Avalon: The Wizard Master (Hitmaker)
-The Key of Avalon: Summon the New Monsters (Hitmaker)
-The Key of Avalon II: Order and Commandment (Hitmaker)
-Virtua Striker 2002 (Amusement Vision)
-Virtua Striker 4 (Smilebit)

CHIHIRO (Sega owned, licensed from Microsoft)
-Crazy Taxi: High Roller (Hitmaker)
-Ghost Squad (Sega-AM2)
-Ollie King (Amusement Vision)
-Outrun 2 (Sega-AM2)
-Outrun 2SP: Outrun 2 Special Tours (Sega-AM2)
-Quest of D (Sega-AM2)
-Sega Golf Club Network Pro Tour (Sega-AM2)
-Sega Network Taisen MJ-2 (Sega-AM2)
-The House of the Dead III (Wow Entertainment)
-Virtua Cop 3 (Sega-AM2)

ATOMISWAVE (Sammy owned, licensed from Sega)
-Chicago 1929 (Sammy)
-Demolish Fist (Dimps)
-Dolphin Blue (Sammy)
-Faster than Speed (Sammy)
-Force Five (Sammy)
-Guilty Gear X Ver. 1.5 (Arc System Works)
-Guilty Gear Isuka (Arc System Works)
-Knights Of Valor : The Seven Spirits (IGS)
-Maximum Speed (Sammy)
-Metal Slug 6 (SNK Playmore)
-NeoGeo Battle Coliseum (SNK Playmore)
-Premium Eleven (Dimps)
-Ranger Mission (Sammy)
-Salaried Worker Golden Taro (Sammy)
-Sammy Vs Capcom (Sammy)
-Samurai Spirits AW (SNK Playmore)
-Sports Shooting USA (Sammy)
-Sushi Bar (Sammy)
-The King Of Fighters 2004 (SNK Playmore)
-The King Of Fighters Neowave (SNK Playmore)
-The Rumble Fish (Dimps)

Outside AM2, Chihiro hasn't really gotten more Sega support... indeed Wow, Smilebit and Hitmaker moved away from it favor of TF for later projects. Sega seems to lack arcade hardware focus imo, though that should be rectified soon with the Atomiswave mandate (and hopefully the new System SP board).

 

[Miburou]

Anyone know the relative price difference between Chihiro and Naomi 2? They seem to be more or less equal in power.

 

[jarrod]

Anyone know the relative price difference between Chihiro and Naomi 2? They seem to be more or less equal in power.

Chihiro's quite a bit more capable in most areas, though Naomi 2 has it's strenghts. Lazy or doncale could probably elaborate.

 

[segasonic]

power Vr 5 board is vaporware

no

 

[doncale]

I cant elaborate too much. NAOMI 2 does have a few strengths over Chihiro, but Chihiro has more strengths over NAOMI 2.

NOAMI 2's only major strength as far as I know, is that, thanks to ELAN, it can do lighting in parallal with geometry, where as on Chihiro's NV2A, lighting eats into geometry performance. but NV2A has more to start with. so both architecture are very roughly similar in performance.

overall, Chihiro has the price/performance

 

[Lazy8s]

With their operation and profitability both presently and historically strongest in the arcades, SEGA's not so much a third party console developer as they are an independent amusement company. This makes it important for them to have control over the hardware rights in their arcade platform (and not just of the platform itself), so designing a custom solution as opposed to deriving it from some other company's console gives them that freedom. It's not likely they'd limit themselves to console-based boards - even souped up versions - like Namco has been doing in the next generation. SEGA may only be doing it for the most part now due to their sudden opportunity to establish console-derived platforms for the other systems and due to having been caught unaware that they'd be needing a new custom platform.

The revenues made from popular arcade games are enough for the market to support itself independently, so the arcade market is the foremost and sometimes only concern for a game's development, not relying on potential sales from home console ports to cover the budget.

 

[XS+]

Quest of D is Naomi 2 iirc, not Chihiro.

Wow, I told Jarrod a couple months ago that QoD was running on Chihiro, and he acknowledged and updated his 'list.' What happened since then?

I hope Sega can pull off 'tactical' gun games with Ghost Squad, Konami's past efforts in the subgenre (World Combat, Wartran Troopers) have been kind of lacking in pace and excitement.

 

[Shinobi]

Eh, fuck these boards...bring on Naomi 3.

 

[Diablos]

Fuck 'em ALL.

 

[Lazy8s]

An arcade board has to stock excess RAM and hold more game scenes in memory to keep load times down since the market is less tolerant of them. Between having 1T-SRAM and embedded RAM, scaling GameCube's memory is relatively costly, and it would be more involved from an engineering and manufacturing standpoint to change the amount of display RAM embedded on the PS2's GS (don't want field-rendered games in the arcade where progressive scan monitors are used.) Comparatively, the Xbox and especially the Dreamcast architectures scale their memory pools and display RAM more easily and can therefore be optimal in price/performance.