Marvel vs Capcom 2 / NAOMI Multigame

Game Produced by Capcom (c)2000
NAOMI System Manufactured by Sega (c)1998

I picked up the Sega NAOMI internals for this machine,  including Marvel vs Capcom 2 which was originally in a Dynamo showcase cabinet.  Unfortunately the showcase cabinet had no monitor.  It sat on the local cragislist for probably 2 months before I decided to pull the trigger.  I knew I couldn't fit another showcase cabinet in the garagecade but after reading up on the NAOMI system I wanted it.  I figured I would pull the system from the showcase cabinet and then give the cabinet away.  To be honest,  the showcase cabinet wasn't in great shape.  I pulled the parts and put the cabinet up for free on craigslist.  It sat… for free… on CL for a week before I decided to load it up and do something I had never done before (and never done since)… take it to the dump.  R.I.P Showcase cabinet.

It just so happens within a week an Area 51 housed in a Z-Back cabinet popped up locally.  I immediately pounced knowing that it would make a decent cabinet for Marvel vs Capcom 2.  I already had an Area 51 (showcase) cabinet so the PCB was immediately put up for sale while i went about converting the cabinet to a fighter cabinet.  I ordered a Marvel vs Capcom 2 marquee as well as a set of sticks and buttons to use.  I also picked up a set of (barely acceptable looking) instruction cards from ebay.  The cabinet remained this way for a couple months until I saved up enough dough to place another www.gameongrafix.com order for the control panel overlay (semi-custom) and a couple other overlays (Mario Bros and Gravitar/BW Multigame) at the same time.  It was about this time that I learned about the NAOMI systems ability to "netboot".

So it seems the NAOMI system was built with the ability to drop a specialized cartridge in the machine in place of the normal cartridge that has RAM installed and a battery,  as well as a CAT5 connector.  It was designed so arcade operators could swap out games in the cabinet on the fly.  I am not sure how many arcades actually used the capability though.  Essentially you use another computer (whether it be a laptop connected directly to the NAOMI system or any computer attached to a network that the NAOMI system is connected to) to "push" content (games) to the NAOMI.  Once the game is installed in the NAOMI there is a battery pack that retains that game for a short time (basically you can turn the game off for 4 to 5 days without powering up to recharge the battery and still have the game retained in memory).  If you happen to wait too long and the battery drops below a certain voltage,  the game is lost and you have to "re-upload" the game.  What this allows collectors to do is to acquire the files necessary for just about every game for the NAOMI to play (as well as most games the Atomiswave system plays as well since Darksoft has figured a way to modify them to load on the NAOMI ... which is possible because both systems are based on the Sega Dreamcast hardware).

I decided to add the NAOMI to my local network and use my cocktail MAME cabinet to upload the games to NAOMI.  I already had a front end called MAMEWah configured to load my MAME ROMs,  I figured I could configure it to also upload the NAOMI ROMs as well.  With a little work I created a separate "platform" on the front end for NAOMI which shows a screenshot and preview video.  If you select the game it then will upload it to NAOMI to play.  It works great.  Over a few months time I was also able to add Atomiswave games too.   Currently there are probably in excess of 60 games that I can upload and play on the NAOMI cabinet.  I've created a video of how this works which can be seen below.

As for the cabinet itself,  Aside from the marquee, control panel overlay, joysticks and buttons,  I also touched up the black paint a bit and added an exhaust fan to the rear of the machine.  I also swapped out he CGA monitor that was in it for a VGA monitor that I purchased from a local collector (Thanks Torin!).  The game plays fantastic and the system has too many great games to list.  I would highly recommend those looking for a quality multigame to consider picking up a NAOMI cabinet and netbooting it.  It's really hard to beat the "bang for the buck".

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