City

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City
Developer: Sega
Release Date RRP Code JP 1986 ¥? ?

The City (シティ) is a multi-purpose arcade cabinet released by Sega in 1986 alongside Dump Matsumoto. It is thought to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest cabinets of its kind, its release spawning multiple iterations of the City range which continue to be used to this day.

The City is a no frills, JAMMA-compliant cabinet which shipped without a game. As the JAMMA standard grew in popularity, games did not need their own bespoke cabinets to function, and thus the City was designed to be a permanent feature of a Japanese arcade, with the arcade operators merely swapping out game PCBs when they saw fit. Furthermore, the City was designed to be compact and relatively lightweight, allowing for multiple units to be placed in a line without ruining the arcade's aesthetics.

While Sega had been creating "upright" arcade cabinets for years, it was more common at the time to see cocktail cabinets in Japanese game centers. With the screen pointing upwards, however, it was likely to reflect the ceiling lights and distrupt play - the City has an angled screen to help mitigate this.

City cabinets are heavily customisable and are designed to be played sitting down (usually on a stool). It is not thought any City cabinets were officially released outside of Japan, where this style of arcade gaming was not as common. Compared to its more successful siblings, the Aero City and Astro City, City cabinets are very rare.

Namco and Jaleco started producing City-like cabinets at around the same time.

Physical scans

Arcade, JP