The Type X4 is likely the last of the "exclusive" arcade boards. After the TTX4, Taito released the Type X5 (based on Intel 7th Gen and GTX 1060), but that board mostly runs multiplatform games like Tekken 7 and Street Fighter V, which are also on home consoles.
The X4 represents a golden era where arcade games were technically PC games, but legally and operationally, they were something else entirely.
| Game | Genre | Still exclusive? | Home port exists? | |------|-------|----------------|-------------------| | Gunslinger Stratos 3 | Gun shooter | Yes | No | | Time Crisis 5 | Gun shooter | Yes | No | | KOF '98 UM Final Edition | Fighting | Yes | No | | Ray’z X4 mode | Shmup | Yes (partially) | No (mode exclusive) | | Puzzle & Dragons Radar | Action-puzzle | Yes | No | taito type x4 games exclusive
For deeper research, visit Arcade-History.com or the Taito Type X4 thread on Arcade Projects forums.
Released around 2013–2014, the Taito Type X4 is, at its core, a standard Windows PC. While its predecessors (the X2 and X3) utilized Intel Core 2 Duo processors, the X4 leaped forward into the modern multicore era. The Type X4 is likely the last of
The specs read like a mid-range gaming PC of the time: an Intel Core i5 processor, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost, and RAM ranging from 4GB to 8GB. It utilized SSD storage, cutting down on the notoriously slow load times of previous cabinet hard drives.
But this is where the narrative shifts. In the West, the rise of Steam and home consoles made the specs of the Type X4 seem pedestrian. However, in the Japanese "Amusement Machine" market, this hardware was a lifeline. It allowed developers to port graphically intensive titles to the arcade without the astronomical cost of developing proprietary chips. The X4 was designed to run games that required heavy particle effects, complex physics, and high-resolution textures—games that demanded the raw horsepower of a dedicated GPU. Released around 2013–2014, the Taito Type X4 is,
The Taito Type X4 is an arcade system board released by Taito in 2016. Unlike earlier Type X boards (which used desktop PC components), the X4 is based on:
The X4 was designed to run modern fighting games, rail shooters, and light-gun games with high-definition graphics, often identical to their console/PC ports.