HOD Arcade History: Sega Chihiro

The Sega Chihiro is an arcade system produced by Sega and Microsoft in 2003. It is based upon the Microsoft Xbox, using the same Pentium III CPU and Nvidia graphics card. Unlike the Xbox however, it has upgradable RAM and uses GD-ROM media instead of DVDs. Because of the similar hardware, it is in theory relatively easy to port Chihiro games to the Xbox and PC.

Hardware Description
System : X-Box based configuration.
CPU : Intel Pentium III 733MHz (133MHz FSB)
Graphics : nVidia XChip 200MHz (based on the nVidia GeForce 3)
Sound Hardware :
1. Cirrus Logic CS4630 Stream Processor (20-bit DAC, programmable to handle 3D sound streams, 2D sound (including DLS-compatible MIDI), MP3 acceleration, Sensaura environmental effects, and other functions)
2. Other sounds may be generated by the CPU via software engines.
3. nVidia nForce (Real time Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding)
RAM : Upgradable Module, from 64MB upwards (Outrun 2 has 512MB)
Media : Sega GD-Rom
Polygons : 125M Polys/sec (Theoretical Maximum)
Rendering Speed : 4.0 G pixel/sec
Features : Programmable vertex and pixel shading, hardware Transform & Lighting engine, Quincunx FSAA, Anisotropic filtering, bump mapping, hardware lighting, particle effects, other standard 3D features).

The House of the Dead III uses this arcade system with two realistic “pump action shotguns” Sega showed off. Unlike the original two, players must rescue each other from harm to earn health and points instead of saving civilians. The arcade version of HOTD III is also different from the console port of the game. In the attraction mode, the game will show the official artwork of The House of the Dead III. Seganaomi shows off a video of the start up boot.

Here another video of the prototype version of The House of the Dead III.