Via Twitter, Sega has announced and begun promoting a new game in the Daytona USA franchise. The Twitter account belongs specifically to Sega’s amusement department, the department of Sega dedicated to the development, production, and distribution of Sega arcade cabinets. On their Twitter account Sega amusements posted a gif that cycles through different generations of Daytona USA games, ending in 2016 with the blacked out silhouette of an arcade cabinet. This new Daytona USA game will only be available in the arcade format, with seemingly no discernible plan for that to change.
The post by Sega amusements also confirmed the new Daytona USA cabinet will be playable at an IAAPA (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) event that is going to be taking place in Orange County at the Orange County Convention Center. At Sega Booth 1606 people will be able to take the new arcade machine for a test drive. This event will take place the week of November 14th.
Daytona USA was originally released in 1993 and the franchise is an instantly recognizable one for essentially anyone who has ever been to an arcade at some point in their life. Daytona USA is an odd franchise, in that it tends to exist in an odd space of not really nostalgia. It is not necessarily fondly remembered. More often than not certain video games from the past instill feeling of nostalgia and all that comes along with that and there are some obvious examples of this. Daytona USA was just an existing constant, something you saw and played a couple of times and is always tied with the experience of going to an arcade.
This new entry into the franchise is going to be the first Daytona game since 1998 when Daytona USA 2: Battle on the Edge was released. An interesting fact about Daytona 2 is that it was directed by Toshihiro Nagoshi. Nagoshi would later go on to create and direct the Yakuza series, definitely a far cry from Daytona USA. The website for the IAAPA event where the new Daytona USA cabinet can be played can be found here.