A little while ago, we had unveiled that the famous Cruis’n game series was coming back to arcades via Raw Thrills and Nintendo. Thanks to those two companies, we have new official information to share with you today.
The Cruis’n Blast Cabinet
Let’s start off with an official render of the game cabinet that is expected to hit production. It is different from the location test versions and sports a design that is a little unusual for a modern racing game.
It seems to blend elements of the MotoGP cabinets with a cockpit racer. It also features a 43″ 1080p screen, graphics powered by an nVidia GTX 750 Ti (for 1080p@60FPS graphics), “over 1000” of RGB LED lights and a new “Thrill-D Blaster Sound System” that is capable of reproducing the “sound of an actual race.” This is the same sound system used in Jurassic Park so it will be heavy on the bass. There is also a boost button labelled “Blast” :
The Cruis’n Name
In the initial story and location test setup, the game was originally titled Cruis’n Adventure. After that, it was seen as Cruis’n Redline and the company also considered just using “Cruis’n”. After internal consideration, the final/production name is Cruis’n Blast (to convey excitement/explosions/fun).
The Card System
One element to the game that was tested out was an infrared scanning card system. This was promoted to collect cards as well as save/unlock content in the game. After testing, it was decided that the card system would be removed from the game and in it’s place is a keypad save system.
Compared To Fast N’ Furious
Raw Thrills is well known for their work in designing the Fast And The Furious games. They’ve got a lot of mileage out of the style and license, with four officially licensed games to use the FnF name (The Fast And The Furious; FnF Tokyo Drift; FnF Super Cars; FnF Super Bikes) and a couple of spin-offs (Super Bikes 2, Winter X Games Snocross). The formula for racing in these titles shared similarities with the original Cruis’n games including racing around different parts of the world and featuring open circuit track as opposed to closed circuit.
Cruis’n Blast is a “clean break” from FnF games by featuring “100% different code” and was put together by a different team. The team was aiming for more of a “joyride feel” compared to the FnF titles. Like Cruis’n World/Exotica and FnF Tokyo Drift/Super Cars, the roster of tracks has an international flare, the press release below mentioning locations such as: London, Madagascar, Rio De Janeiro, Singapore and Death Valley. Like FnF there are licensed vehicles although I believe the roster differs with high profile names like Lamborghini.
Press Release
For the details that I’ve been quoting, you can refer to this official press release that I received. The game will be released to arcades worldwide in January 2017. As an FYI, the “first arcade exclusive release” mentioned here is actually referring to Nintendo I have confirmed so that essentially tells us what we need to know for now regarding a WiiU/NX port:
So there you have – official info and an official cabinet render, we have a solid idea of what the next Cruis’n game is going to be like. This will also be at IAAPA 2016 in November. What do you think about this upcoming title?
An operator in my area follows your website and he’s looking to get a pair of these in his arcade. Looking at the cabinet design (in my opinion, it looks better than the one you showed on Mewe), and the reputation of this game’s franchise, this looks like it will come to a lot of arcades.
I also wonder if this game will have some sort of ending involving a president congratulating you in a way. Considering that it takes some time to make a cutscene like so and with the Presidental race ending in November, they might not add it in or have to bust nuts (and bolts) to put in into the final software.
It’s so ironic that Nintendo’s name is on the arcade version when they censored the N64 version, including the famous “Presidential Hot Tub” scene.
I also love how they tout the “Supercomputer” prowess of the 1.6 Gflops of the 750 ti. An Xbox One has more processing power. lol.
I realize the “Crusin'” series was never know for its graphical prowess, but I wish the arcades would return to their graphical might of the past. The processing power is there now, and it’s cheap, yet very few games, aside from the “theme park” style games take advantage of what is capable currently.
Hmm… The Xbox One has a 1.3 Gflop GPU.
The PS4 is in the fact the one over 1.6 (~1.8)
Arcades don’t return to their graphical might of the past because it isn’t sustainable? You can’t keep increasing budgets if the market size remains the same (or even decreases).
One thing to keep in mind is that we don’t know the CPU in the Cruis’n system – it’s not just the GPU that determines the power/operations per second. That of course is one area that allows the PS4 to top the X1 in overall power.
Many Ps4/X1 games do have the issue of running at only 30 FPS while doing either 1080p or in the case of the X1, 900p. Cruis’n is 1080p@60F and we do not know yet what they mean with “special fx”. Batman for one example had hundreds of dynamic light sources while maintaining the 60fps.
Granted, I personally would like to see arcades pushing 4k@60FPS already or pioneering the latest light systems, voxels, ray-tracing, etc. I am getting info on holographics for the industry though so that will also change things.
Wow 70K is a huge number for the ’90s arcade scene.
Do you know the split between the three games?
Cruis’n was insanely popular at the time, in fact the N64 (bad) port of Cruis’n USA sold 1.72 million units worldwide and it was the best selling arcade racing game conversion of that generation of consoles.
Adam, these Cruis’n news got me thinking. Now that pinball machines are getting crazy expensive (and NOT from increased copper prices – lol), we are probably going to see pinball move more to the home than real arcades. Could we imagine a market where home owners would start buying new arcade games like the new Cruis’n game? I asked my wife, if should rather have a new Stern pinball machine or the new Cruis’n/House of the Dead etc. The pinball machine lost right away.
I understand if you won’t discuss prices, but what is the price level of your more modern arcades (within 4-5 years) compared to modern pinball machines?
Thanks!!
Nicholas
Pinball moving towards home has actually been the case for several years now – I don’t have the link but I have heard how Stern’s sales are split something like 50/50 between home and commercial markets. That’s why Stern has done special home versions of games like Transformers.
When I worked in arcade sales, I would say maybe about 30-40% of sales went to homes. Usually stuff like Golden Tee, Big Buck and Pac-Man’s Arcade Party. On occasion you might get something like a Mario Kart or an Aliens but overall, it was more than I expected.
From what I have heard, Cruis’n is around $7200USD. Most video is still pretty expensive but Raw Thrills tends to have the better prices. Also to consider – pinball being mechanical tends to have more issues over the long run.