Daytona USA

In Daytona USA, the player drives a stock car known as the Hornet. Three courses are available for play: Beginner, Advanced, and Expert, also known respectively as Three Seven Speedway, Dinosaur Canyon, and Seaside Street Galaxy. Daytona USA's arcade version on the Model 2 is capable of displaying up to 300,000 texture-mapped polygons per second, Visually, the game uses texture filtering, giving the visuals a smooth appearance. The arcade version allows up to eight players to compete with each other, depending on the number of cabinets linked together. Linked deluxe cabinets may also include a camera pointing towards the drivers seat, linked to a closed-circuit television to show the player on a separate screen. Rubber-banding is used in multiplayer races to ensure all players stay involved in the race. The Sega Saturn version does not include multiplayer, but includes an additional "Saturn" mode, which turns off the game's timer and adds more cars for the player to choose from. Additional "Endurance" and "Grand Prix" modes are also included, both of which require pit stops. Sustaining damage in a race in these modes will adversely affect the car's performance. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions included online multiplayer with up to eight players. ==Development==

In September 1992, Sega partnered with the engineering division GE Aerospace to create its new arcade system board, the Model 2. They were connected via a cold call from GE's Bob Hichborn, who met with Sega executives at the division's Daytona Beach, Florida headquarters in 1990, and later at Sega's headquarters in Tokyo in November of the same year. At the second meeting, GE Aerospace executives brought a tape demonstrating the hardware's 3D graphics simulating the Daytona International Speedway. GE estimated that their sale of the Model 2's graphics technology accelerated Sega's arcade hardware development by 14 months. Sega mandated that Daytona USA had to be better than Namco's 1993 racing game Ridge Racer and it had to achieve higher sales. Ridge Racer had reached the top of arcade sales charts at the end of 1993 and beginning of 1994, and it had received highly favorable reviews of its graphics, especially in comparison to Virtua Racing. Development was assigned to Sega AM2, a development division headed by Yu Suzuki, who had led development on popular racing games including Hang-On, Out Run, and Virtua Racing. While in the US for a meeting on the Model 2, Nagoshi was given tickets to a NASCAR race, and later recalled that it was a new experience for him because it was not a known style of racing in Japan. As research for the project, Nagoshi read books and watched videos on NASCAR, although he found it difficult to convey the emotions of the sport to his staff in Japan. Game planner Makoto Osaki said he purchased a sports car and watched the NASCAR film Days of Thunder more than 100 times. Programmer Daichi Katagiri was an avid player of arcade racing games at the time and leaned on that experience. Nagoshi walked a full lap to get a feel for the banking in the corners. As this was new for the developers, trial and error was used to find the most effective approach. while "Sky High" leaned on Mitsuyoshi's background in jazz fusion. A hidden track, "Pounding Pavement", was inspired by "Hotel California" by the Eagles and is accessible by holding the fourth view perspective button while selecting the beginner track in the arcade version. ==Release==

Prior to release, Sega debuted a prototype of Daytona USA at the Amusement Machine Show in Tokyo in August 1993, and it was tested in select Japanese arcades the same month; Petit stated that this was done to measure how the games would be received by the public. it was subsequently released worldwide in April 1994. for the Sega Saturn in North America and Europe. Around the time of the worldwide release, Sega announced releases for its Saturn and 32X consoles, In early 1995, Sega AM2's Saturn division split into three departments, each charged with converting a different arcade game to the Saturn: Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop, and Daytona USA. Due to slow progress on the Daytona USA conversion, several members of the Virtua Fighter 2 team were reassigned to Daytona USA. AM2 completed the conversion in April 1995. It was a Western launch game for Saturn, and was also released for Windows via SegaSoft. In Japan, two separate Windows releases were done in September and December 1996, with the first released version supporting specific graphics cards such as Leadtek's WinFast GD400. A Windows version was released in Europe on November 14, 1996, and in North America in December of the same year. ==Remakes and sequels==

Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition, a reworked and expanded version of Daytona USA, was released in 1996 for the Saturn. Developed by Sega's consumer software division, An enhanced arcade remake, called Sega Racing Classic, was released in 2010 and is the first title in the series not branded with the Daytona name as Sega no longer owned the rights at the time. It operates on Sega's RingWide arcade system board and features high definition graphics and an arranged instrumental soundtrack. Another enhanced version was released digitally for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in October 2011, titled Daytona USA. It includes both the original arcade soundtrack and the arranged soundtrack from Sega Racing Classic with vocals by Mitsuyoshi, along with added features including eight player online multiplayer, challenge, and karaoke modes. The game was delisted from all Xbox stores in February 2023. Daytona USA 2: Battle on the Edge, an arcade-exclusive sequel using the Sega Model 3 hardware, was released in 1998. It is the only Daytona game that uses no courses or music from the original. Daytona Championship USA, also referred to as Daytona USA 3, debuted in late 2016 as an arcade exclusive; it was the first Daytona-branded arcade game in 18 years. ==Reception and legacy==

Arcade Daytona USA was popular in arcades. In Japan, it was the ninth highest-grossing arcade game of 1994, and the highest-grossing dedicated arcade game of 1995. In North America, it was listed by arcade industry magazine Play Meter as one of the top two highest-grossing arcade video games of 1994, with the twin cabinet receiving a Diamond Award from the American Amusement Machine Association (AAMA) that year; it again received a Diamond Award the following year for being one of America's top three best-selling arcade games of 1995. In the United Kingdom, it topped the dedicated arcade charts for six months in 1994, from May to October. Retro Gamer's Nick Thorpe said that though Daytona USA is considered anecdotally one of the most successful arcade games for its multiplayer and longevity, exact figures were difficult to find. In contrast, Bob Strauss of Entertainment Weekly compared the game to watching a movie, and said, "Picture yourself watching a sci-fi movie, set in a futuristic arcade, that involves a dizzying car race. 'Wow!' you can imagine saying to yourself, 'How did they do those special effects?' You'll have the same reaction while enjoying Daytona USA". Saturn The Saturn port sold over 500,000 units in Japan, as well as more than 500,000 bundled copies in the USA by December 1996 for a total of 1 million units sold across both regions. It received a positive reception, with high scores from most critics, though a number of them criticized it for graphical issues. While identifying improvements on the North American version of the game compared to the Japanese version, two sports game reviewers for EGM found problems with the frame rate and animation. By contrast, a reviewer for Sega Saturn Magazine found the game graphically impressive aside from the pop-up and asserted it had strong arcade-style gameplay, and one from Next Generation argued that, while "Daytona USA suffers from an accumulation of weaknesses, if it's a fast, thrilling racing game you're after, the Saturn conversion has a great deal to recommend". The Windows version was a port of the Saturn's, and was not as well-received for inheriting the Saturn version's graphical issues despite being released a year later. Retrospective Daytona USA was named one of the best games of all time by Next Generation in 1996, GamesMaster in 1996, Computer and Video Games in 2000, EGM in 1997 and 2001, Yahoo! in 2005, and Empire in 2009. It was named one of the best coin-op games by EGM in 1997 and by Killer List of Videogames, and one of the best retro games by NowGamer in 2010 and EGM in 2006. Edge named it the 70th "best game to play today" in 2009. In 2015, IGN named it the sixth-most influential racing game, asserting that it "remains a shining example of arcade racing done oh so right". 1Up.com's Ray Barnholt praised this version but expressed disappointment at the lack of new features. ==See also==