In our industry, arcade games don’t always get a shot at being sold for much longer than five years, let alone receive new models. There are exceptions with popular titles however, and today we have a new theater-style design for 2018’s House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn from Sega to discuss. Let’s take a look.
Background
First off, some background and credit to the people who helped bring this story to light. Early on in the day on Wednesday, Ted spotted a mysterious, slightly different looking cabinet for House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn (originally released in 2018 only as a super deluxe/SDLX environmental machine) in the background of this new FEC opening for Paris, France, which was linked in the AH Discord server.
Then not too long afterward, whilst looking on Sega Amusements’ site for Maimai DX (which has still not appeared as of yet), fellow AH Discord member and site friend bemBlake noticed a new page for a ‘theater’ version of HOTD SD, confirming its existence. Following that being linked in the chat too, the page confusingly ended up throwing a 404 error – but only because whilst we were trying to figure that out, the URL had actually been changed to correct the spelling from ‘theater’ to ‘theatre’. Nonetheless, we have official confirmation of it all now, so read on below for the full details.
For reference just before that, here’s what the original cabinet design looked like again. You have most likely seen this out there on location somewhere; I have had one since 2020:
House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn Theater
So what makes this new House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn cabinet different? Like the original SDLX one we all know, it’s still an enclosed sit-down design – unlike the rare upright models, which came in two forms (one released only by Andamiro in South Korea, the other spotted at a few UK locations that Sega Amusements are involved with) – but there are a couple of changes to speak of.
Chief among those is the new lighting features on the front; these have been scaled back slightly to not cover the whole thing, with the plastic backlit shell, 3D sculpted zombie head, and motion sensor gone, whilst retaining a similar look with the zombies bursting out. The air blowers/overhead lighting on the inside have also been removed, although the 5.1 channel surround sound and seat vibration are still intact (confirmed through talking with Sega, and per the product page and flyer).
The idea here is to provide a similar experience at a lower cost, allowing more locations to grab the game than previously. Sega really did go to town on making the SDLX version immersive (as noted in this below review on the AH YouTube channel), to the extent that it priced out some operators, so it’s good that they are still keeping an eye on providing some options for the little guys.
As indicated by it already appearing at that French location mentioned earlier, orders are open and cabinets are now shipping in Europe to any interested buyers. These are also being built in Chicago at the moment, so it should begin showing up at locations here in North America here soon, although my call with the contact at Sega Amusements’ US side was cut short before I could confirm if the game will be at Amusement Expo in Vegas next month. I would assume that it will be there, however, alongside Maimai DX.
What do you think of the new theater model for House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn? Would you like to see it at a location near you?
