NAOMI Arcade Board

The Sega NAOMI (also known as the New Arcade Operation Machine Idea) is an arcade system board developed and used by Sega for a wide variety of their arcade releases from the late 1990's to mid-2000's, although several third party developers made games into the late 2000's, such as Karous and Melty Blood: Actress Again.

Its hardware shares the same architecture as Sega's Dreamcast console, albeit with increased memory capabilities. Along with hardware updates, it later received two revisions (the enhanced NAOMI 2 and the cost-reduced System SP), and was used as the base for Sammy's Atomiswave system.

Variants and Revisions

 * NAOMI Multiboard - Exactly what it sounds like, 2 to 16 NAOMI boards connected together for more graphical and proccesing power. Games include Airline Pilots and F355 Challenge.
 * Hikaru - The Hikaru had an extra Motorola CPU for networking as well as increased RAM and GPU power. It was considerably more expensive than the standard NAOMI. Games include Planet Harriers and Nascar Arcade.
 * NAOMI 2 - The NAOMI 2 had 2 PowerVR CLX2 GPUs, a PowerVR Elan chip, and 2 times the VRAM. It was also more expensive than the standard NAOMI and less popular. Games include Virtua Fighter 4 and Initial D Arcade Stage.
 * Atomiswave - The Atomiswave has the same specifications as a stock Dreamcast and was sold as a lower-end board. SNK developed several games for the system after moving away from the MVS system such as Metal Slug 6.
 * System SP - The Sytem SP, also called the Aurora, was a low-cost version of the NAOMI, using Compact Flash cards instead of proprietary cartridges or GD-ROM discs. It was also marketed to developers for use with games meant for young children. Games include Dinosaur King and Tetris Giant

Similar Boards

 * Gaelco PowerVR - The Gaelco PowerVR was an arcade board based on the PowerVR GPU, the same one used in the NAOMI and all it's variants. Games include Smashing Drive and Tokyo Cop.
 * Cave CV1000B/D - The Cave CV1000B had a Hitachi SH-3 at 133 MHz, which was a lower-end version of the SH-4 used in the Dreamcast and NAOMI.