Early concept of Daytona USA at Summer CES 1993. Not on Model 2 but Compu-Scene ?

The most common version of Daytona USA was released in 1994, yet late the previous year there was a prototype version that featured at various trade shows and even a few public arcades. This particular build is readily availabe online, though really the differences are minor. For example, before the start of a race there are alternate camera movements, plus the lap counter in the HUD is a preliminary design. Honestly, it's nothing significant overall.

As for the 1995 date on the Virtua Fighter 3 boards, it's well known the Model 3 hardware was significantly delayed - I've never actually noticed this, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if the previous year was mentioned. I have an interview with Yu Suzuki somewhere that confirms the intended '95 launch, though Lockheed Martin were late completing their newest technology so AM2 had to produce the earliest animation tests using the established Model 2.

 

Much like Anthaemia said, Peter Morawiec, who pitched the project among others (Comix Zone, a Sonic SatAM based game), made an animation using an Amiga. It's probably just like this one over here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlmmDh5gMB0

Great footage on Daytona, I love that game . I sometimes mockingly sing "DAYTONAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" with one of my pals and we crack up all the time .

 

Any idea why it was delayed? The date on the board seems to indicate that it was manufactured in 1995, if not earlier. It's pretty amazing to think that, as far ahead of its time as it already was in 1996, the Model 3 might have launched a year earlier.

 

I've played the 93 version of Daytona USA and there are a few more differences than just slightly different camera angling at the start and the preliminary looking lap counter, for one thing the AI in the 93 version from what I've experienced is more aggressive when compared to the 94 version, another difference is the 93 version has no options in the test menu to allow multiplayer (even the song that plays when you're waiting for other players on a linked machine is missing) making the 93 version single player only other than that and what Anthaemia has already posted about the 93 version everything else is the same.

 

I'm not sure as to why the delay happened, but I know there were originally meant to have been three games launched with the board: Virtua Fighter 3, SCUD Race and Indy 500. Due to the hardware already hitting its maximum capabilities in VF3, SCUD Race was moved over to the interim "1.5" board while a proper Step 2 design was finalised. As for Indy 500, the developers were so tired of waiting they simply finished this one for the Model 2 instead. Could it be that the entire Model 3 project was temporarily put on hold pending review following the merge of Lockheed Martin? I know that for the first few months of development AM2 were definitely forced to start preliminary work on VF3 using a revision of the Model 2 architecture...

 

From what I understand, it jives with what Anthaemia said.

Model 3 was intended for a late 1995 release with Virtua Fighter 3, Indy 500 and perhaps one other game, most likely Scud Race. The new board was not showcased until early-mid 1996 in Japan at one of the arcade expos. There the real-time VF3 tech demo was shown. I think the same demo was shown at E3 1996 but I'm not sure if it was exactly the same one. Anyway, a watered down version of Indy 500 was coded up for Model 2. VF3 wasn't released in Japan until Q3 or Q4 1996. I personally did not see a VF3 machine until Jan or Feb 1997 at an arcade in the Chicago area. It was in Niles, IL at the Golf Mill Shopping Center. They seemed to get new games early, sometimes test versions. So all in all, Model 3 was massively delayed, by around 1 year, which is a huge amount of time in terms of arcade tech.

The merger between Martin Marietta and Lockheed, forming Lockheed-Martin and thus the formation of the Real3D division within LM, happened sometime in early-mid 1995. With the delays of the LM/Real3D Model 3 board, that was probably one reason Sega decided to look elsewhere for home console tech, such as the 3DO/Matsushita M2, then 3Dfx and Videologic/NEC PowerVR, as well as others.

 

In the wait for Lockheed to deliver final Model 3 hardware, AM2 started producing Virtua Fighter 3 using the company's previous board in mid 1995. Although never seen outside of Sega's Japanese headquarters, I've found a few Yu Suzuki quotes from July '95 that give you a fascinating hint as to what this interim version may have been like:

"We're now looking at ten different techniques. Of course, we don't know yet which we will use, or which will still be too difficult, but we must use at least three or four new techniques to make it worthy to be called Virtua Fighter 3. There's the idea that we could become more familiar with Model 2 and find out its hidden capacity, but with some of the techniques being researched now [it] would be physically impossible with Model 2. Really, we'd like to do [VF3] with a new board. We're looking at new characters along with the techniques. We are not thinking deeply about male characters - maybe we'll just add one to the original line-up. Though at a quick glance it looks like VF2, the feeling of control is very direct and an expert would see there are fine differences. Of course, there are visual differences too, but I can't show you them yet!"

After several weeks of preliminary development as a Model 2 title, AM2 took a break and focused its resources on the Saturn (along with its Titan arcade variant) while Lockheed continued finalising their next generation technology:

"Recently, I've been putting my energies into Saturn and so the arcade side has been powered down. Now that the capabilities of the new SGL OS (including that for ST-V development) have been brought out, I'd like to have a go in this field. Of course, there will still be many arcade games coming out."

[SOURCE: Virtua City panel, Official Sega Magazine]

Along with these curious insights, I've gone through my file archive and discovered that during the very earliest stages of production VF2 was going to include weapons, similar to Battle Arena Toshinden, Soul Edge or Last Bronx. In fact, this particular feature was supposedly prototyped by assistant programmer Francois Y. Bertrand, who left AM2 in 1994 to develop Fight For Life - the Atari Jaguar's offering to the 3D combat genre. Now I've a good idea why Akira/Ryo having a sword in Shenmue was made such a key point... did Suzuki change his mind as to the weapon-based direction of the VF series when he decided to split this and Shenmue into separate entities, as opposed to Akira's Quest just being a side story to the main franchise?