Lindbergh Unleashed! News

SEGA has today unveiled their next â?“generation arcade board (codenamed Lindbergh) at the AM Show. Early reports in the development of the board suggested that it would be based on next-generation console technology (specifically Xbox 360) although this was denied by SEGA a few months back and can now be confirmed by a quick check of Lindberghâ??s specifications:

• 3Ghz Intel Pentium 4 Processor with Hyper-Threading Technology
• Dual 184 DDR SD-RAM PC3200 512MB
• NVIDIA GPU 256 bit GDDR3 256MB with Vertex Shader 3.0 and Pixel Shader 3.0 support (ability to output to two screens)
• 3D audio chip with 5.1 surround sound support

As well as revealing Lindberghâ??s figures, SEGA has also confirmed the development of several titles set to utilise the power of the new board including Virtua Fighter 5, Power Smash 3 (Virtua Tennis 3), the somewhat mysteriously name Psy-Phi, and a long overdue update of 16-bit classic â?“ Afterburner. Even though an announcement has yet to be made about the possibility of porting the titles over to the next-gen consoles, it would be hard to believe that the likes of Power Smash 3 and Virtua Fighter 5 would be created solely for arcade machines.

Previous SEGA boards Naomi and Naomi 2 had been developed by British company Power VR in an agreement with the Japanese firm, and whilst an announcement had been made that SEGAâ??s next-generation board would be created at Power VRâ??s Hertfordshire site back in 2004, news on the deal has since gone cold â?“ leaving it open to question whether Lindbergh replaces the new Power VR board, or not.

Japanese language holding pages for several of the titles such as Afterburner and Psy-Psi have also appeared on the web â?“ weâ??ll have more on any home console versions in the futureâ?¦