Namco O.R.B.S.

The **O.R.B.S.** (short for **Over Reality Booster System**) is an unreleased arcade cabinet developed by Namco in the late 1990s/early 2000s.

The on-rails shooter *Starblade: Operation Blue Planet* was slated to be released with and to utilize the cabinet.

## Details

The O.R.B.S. is an enclosed arcade cabinet with a large semi-spherical projector screen, air blowers, and a speaker array which forms a 5.1 channel audio system with Dolby Digital audio compression. It also features a sliding seat that would open so that the player could sit down then close completely around them, immersing them into the game.

## Background

According to concept sketches dating back to 1999, the O.R.B.S. was originally conceived with a rotating screen that would slide up and over the player, its movements based on the player's actions in the game. This would have been similar to Sega's R-360 cabinet from several years prior. The rotating screen concept was abandoned for a simpler approach; The screen would remain static with the player entering and exiting the cabinet via a sliding chair.

Namco then showcased the prototype O.R.B.S. cabinet with a single-level demo of *Starblade: Operation Blue Planet* at the 39th Amusement Machine Show in 2001 at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center in Tokyo, Japan, alongside several other arcade titles, such as *Wangan Midnight: Maximum Tune* and *Smash Court Pro Tournament*.

Despite Namco's "poor" presence at the expo, *Starblade: Operation Blue Planet* in the O.R.B.S. cabinet proved to be one of the most popular titles presented at the expo, with a 70-minute wait time to play it.

## Why it was Cancelled

It was shortly after the 2001 Amusement Machine Show that the O.R.B.S. cabinet, along with *Starblade: Operation Blue Planet*, was quietly cancelled. This is attributed to the sharp decline in the Japanese video arcade industry and the high costs of the cabinet.

Ironically, in 2009, Namco’s Akira Okubo said that when the decision had been made to shelve the O.R.B.S. due to its “large size, high price and lack of suitable content”, his team had joked that the project could only have been made commercially viable if it had been allowed to make a *Gundam* game.

## Legacy

A few years after the cancellation of the O.R.B.S. cabinet, Namco merged with Bandai, which so happened to own the rights to the *Gundam* franchise.

In 2006, Bandai Namco released a downscaled version of the old O.R.B.S. project, the P.O.D. (Panoramic Optical Display), which ran the arcade game *Mobile Suit Gundam: Bonds of the Battlefield*. *Bonds of the Battlefield* was a commercial success in Japan, also seeing overseas release in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The P.O.D. cabinet was later used by Bandai Namco for three other arcade games in the 2010s, *Mach Storm*, *Star Wars Battle Pod*, and *Lost Land Adventure*.

On October 5th, 2011, Bandai Namco uploaded a video on YouTube of the *Starblade: Operation Blue Planet* demo.

## Gallery

### Cabinet

O.R.B.S. cabinetO.R.B.S. openO.R.B.S. closedSchematic

## External Links

* Wikipedia article of Starblade: Operation Blue Planet
* Kotaku Australia: The Greatest Arcade Cabinet That Never Was

## References

1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid%C5%8D\_Senshi\_Gundam:\_Senj%C5%8D\_no\_Kizuna#Legacy
2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leT3saYfZr4