The CPS-3 System was the last piece of custom build 2D hardware
Capcom made (Now they use the
Naomi/
Naomi GD-ROM/
Naomi 2). There were VERY FEW games released for the system, six to be exact:
There are two forms of media for the system, a standard issue
CD-ROM and a special
Cart. This system was used for it's cheapness and how it could deter bootlegs. The idea was a simple one: CD's could quite easily be copied, but as long as both were required to run a game one would need to go through the
daunting task of trying to dump and copy of the encrypted cart as well.
Now for some of the known technical specs and some random trivia (yeh!):
- The system first appeared in 1996 with WarZard (Also known as Red Earth in the USA) as it's initial title to test the hardware.
- Much like CPS-2, CPS-3 relied greatly on Q-Sound technology (and CD audio?) to make the sound simply rock (however, it is of my opinion that they could have done MUCH better).
- When starting a cabinet with a new CPS-3 game the first time, the hardware needs 25 minutes to initialize the game. In fact it overwrites some flashroms with data from the new CD. This procedure allows the game later to startup as fast as it would normally run from regular EPROMs.