SI Electronics develops hardware for glasses-free 3D arcade games; Sega bringing Pengo to JAMMA

Y3 in action on a 3D glasses-free display made for arcades

Newsfeed 921 via

When news began to trickle out about the upcoming JAMMA show in Japan, we found out early on that SI Electronics was planning on showing off a new arcade hardware platform called the System Board Y3 but beyond the name there were no details revealed about that hardware – until today. AM-Net linked to an official SIE document detailing the hardware specs on the Y3(also picked up by Andriasang) and the big surprise is that it’s been developed with glasses-free 3D games in mind.    Here are the specs:

■ SYSTEM BOARD Y3 Overview (tentative)

CPU: PowerPC 800MHz
Memory: DDR2-800 1GByte
Graphics: 2D Drawing up to 18 billion pixel/sec
Polygon: Drawing up to 10 billion pixel/sec
Movie Playback: Supports Full HD video (implies 1080p resolution)
Sound: 32ch
Media: Undecided
Output: Video, Analogue, D-Sub 15pin x 2
Sound: Stereo 2ch, RCA Connector
Game I/O: JAMMA Connector, JVS I/O Connector
Serial: 1ch
GPIO: 16ch

The board will be at the Kaga Amusement booth, but we don’t know if they will have a game to show off using the technology or it will simply be a technology demo. Hopefully this will not be interpreted by anyone as some new game console but the chances of that are pretty low since SIE isn’t known as a console maker to begin with.

On another JAMMA related note, Sega has revealed that the new multiplayer Pengo arcade title that was recently tested in Japan will be at the show. The game uses the Ringwide hardware but the page the announcement was made on suggests that it will be a four player game as opposed to an eight player one (which is was tested as). Perhaps they’ll have a unique cabinet made just for the game instead of putting it onto stock machines and such a design wouldn’t work out for the eight player concept. But the screenshots on the announcement page still show 8 players as being possible so they may not have ruled it out quite yet. As Pac-Man Battle Royale will be at the same show it should be fun to see the two games compete since they will be gunning for each other. I’m surprised that Sega hasn’t enhanced the graphics beyond giving it a widescreen but that should mean that development costs for this are quite low. It’s similar to Sega Racing Classic in a way but that didn’t stop them from charging way too much for that game. Hopefully the lesson was learned and we won’t have to see the situation repeated with Pengo.

Links for the weekend: New test for Metal Gear, Arcade Propaganda Posters + more

I am needing to catch up on some newsfeeds from the Stinger and in the interest of time I will combine what I can into one post.

Before that though AM.Net has some good links this morning, first with Famitsu’s pics from the most recent location test on Konami’s Metal Gear Arcade. They have modified the cabinets to include a set of 3D glasses on the back of the chair (like they did with Roadfighters 3D) so that someone standing by can see the effect as well. This version of the game had seven playable missions along with team play.

Also Game Watch has a report on the Pengo test by Sega. It sounds like the game really shines when there are eight people involved but it can hold it’s own as a one player game since it still follows the familiar Pengo formula of kicking ice blocks around to smash your enemies. What are your thoughts on them splitting the eight players up among four cabinets though? Would it be less feasible to build something like this?

Now for the Stinger feeds. Newsfeed 887 : Mount Rainier Man Sees Art in Restoring Old Arcade Games. In classic arcade fan circles there are a couple of different categories – those who collect, those who MAME, and those who restore. That many not be completely definitive but it’s close enough and this article discusses the latter of the three as they interview Joe Brewer, a man who began restoring cabinets after picking up a Ms. Pac-Man machine and has been restoring old games ever since.

Newsfeed 888: Arcade Propaganda Posters Calendar. I still want to pick up some of those great arcade game propaganda posters for my arcade but so are many other things on my to-do list. The artist behind the posters has complied his work into a calendar so you can enjoy a different one on a monthly basis, at least until 2011 is over.

UPDATE: I almost forgot to add that Sega’s latest earnings report has their amusement division up 24% over last year and making a profit. You can see info on that starting with page 5 of this report.

Screenshots for the new Darius and Pengo

Darius Burst Another Chronicle – sweet mother of awesome (click to enlarge, via Game Watch):

Pengo. I thought this was going to be eight players on one cabinet but that doesn’t seem to be the case, at least for the moment. The location test connected four two player stations together.I know an 8-player cabinet would still be large but it would require a little less hardware to invest in. Famitsu has more pictures and a video of the game in action.

Sources: AM.Net

Pengo returning to arcades, supports up to 8 players

‘Tis the season of classic arcade remakes or sequels, or at least it seems that way. We have the excitement of a new four-player Pac-Man game, a new Darius and now we have another classic returning to arcades with Pengo. I never have played the arcade version of the original Pengo but I remember playing a port on the Atari 8-bit computer as a kid. Pengo may not carry with it strong name recognition like some other Sega games but perhaps that will change with the new version. The original had you pushing ice blocks around, trying to squish the Sno-Bees, who are chasing you. From the pictures it looks like the new Pengo will stick to the same basic formula but support for up to eight players. Judging from the picture above it doesn’t look like they are going to push the graphics envelope at all, relying upon the multiplayer aspect to carry it through. We have been talking a little bit lately about four player co-op so this certainly ups the ante – eight-players-on-one-cabinet games in the arcade sector aren’t new but they haven’t been done in quite a while as far as I know and with the right game, they can not only be a lot of fun, they can hold great earning potential as well. Will that work out with classic graphics though?

Sega will find that out as the game is testing at Club Sega Akihabara right now.

Exit question: In your opinion, what other classic games would work using a multiplayer update?

Via: AM. Net.jp Source: “Today’s dinner (with fish) blog”