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People throw out the most insane things, and if you’re really lucky you might be able to pick up what someone else has deemed as trash. These things are usually limited to clothing items, furniture pieces, and other small things that can be easily recycled into something new. But what if you stumbled across something forgotten by time that is immensely rare, and someone just dumped it for you to come across.
This is exactly what happened in Northern Ireland recently as Lee Peters, a big fan of Sega’s R360, found the rare, vintage, Sega Arcade Cabinet just sitting in a farmer’s field.
The device was rusted and had clearly seen better days, but the thirty year old treasure was just as amazing to behold. He fondly remembered the machine as he’d had the chance to play with one on holiday in his childhood.
It was certainly a surprise to see a once popular English gaming system in the fields of Northern Ireland, but the bizarre rediscovery has only succeeded in bringing Sega back into the minds of gamers everywhere.
HISTORY OF THE SEGA ARCADE CABINET
Debuted in 1990, this mammoth was the first commercially available arcade machine. The R360 had the unique capability to turn 360 degrees, engaging the player fully, rather than simply sitting them in front of a screen. It is a hefty machine that is over one ton in weight and 210 cm high and has the materials to swing and move on a gyroscope.
It was certainly a star player in English gaming culture and has remained a relic of arcade game history in the modern age. It was an expensive piece of equipment and at the time even cost up to five dollars per ride, but the novelty of the machine is what drove gamers to play again and again.
There isn’t an official number of machines that were released into the public, but it is claimed that no more than two-hundred were ever produced and released to the general public. So to find an old R360 cabinet sitting in the field of a farm in Ireland was a truly rare experience indeed.
Officials claimed that as soon as the R360 lost popularity among consumers and players alike, this machine in particular was brought to the farm to be stored until further notice. It was left with little attention paid to keeping it away from the elements and has now been left beyond repair.
This has surely broken the hearts of Sega fans everywhere, to see such a magnificent piece of gaming history in such disrepair. The hardware was too complicated to upkeep once they fell out of popularity, not to mention that Sega itself hasn’t produced a new gaming console since 1998. The proud company has shifted to third party software development, but has left a lasting imprint on gaming history and the lives of so many.
Though the R360 will never be playable again, it serves as a reminder of the heyday of true arcade gaming.
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