Sega Hikaru

From Sega Retro

Hikaru mainPCB.jpg
Sega Hikaru
Manufacturer: Sega
Release Date RRP Code

The Sega Hikaru is a successor of the NAOMI hardware that was developed in 1998 and debuted in 1999. The Hikaru was used for a handful of deluxe dedicated-cabinet games, beginning with 1999's Brave Fire Fighters, in which the flame and water effects were largely a showpiece for the hardware.

It was significantly more powerful and expensive than the NAOMI, featuring an additional CPU and rasterizer GPU, greater memory, and a custom Sega GPU allowing superior graphical capabilities. The Hikaru hardware was the first arcade platform capable of effective Phong shading, and it was capable of complex lighting and particle effects for its time. Upon release, it was the most powerful gaming system; Planet Harriers, for example, was regarded as having the best video game graphics at the time of its release in 2000.[1] However, it was also the most expensive gaming system. Since it was comparatively expensive to produce, Sega soon abandoned the Hikaru in favor of continued NAOMI development, and it was succeeded by the more affordable NAOMI 2.

Development

According to Sega in 1999: "Brave Firefighters utilizes a slightly modified Naomi Hardware system called Hikaru. Hikaru incorporates a custom Sega graphics chip and possesses larger memory capacity then standard Naomi systems. "These modifications were necessary because in Brave Firefighters, our engineers were faced with the daunting challenge of creating 3d images of flames and sprayed water," stated Sega's Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Barbara Joyiens. "If you stop and think about it, both have an almost infinite number of shapes, sizes, colors, levels of opaqueness, shadings and shadows. And, when you combine the two by simulating the spraying of water on a flame, you create an entirely different set of challenges for our game designers and engineers to overcome; challenges that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to overcome utilizing existing 3D computers. Hikaru has the horsepower to handle these demanding graphic challenges with clarity, depth and precision."[2]

The Hikaru hardware was largely complete in 1998, before it was released to the public in 1999.[3]

Specifications

Hardware Images

List of Games


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Originating in arcades









Console-based hardware








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PC-based hardware








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