Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield, Illinois Debuts Incredibly Rare SEGA R360 Arcade Machine – Only Publicly Playable Machine in America

I’ve covered the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield, Illinois a bit here on SEGAbits. Mainly because it is just a short drive away from the SEGAbits Midwest HQ (or SEGAbits Building 2 as I will now refer to it as). The arcade opened in August 2010, and has since expanded to fill an entire block of storefront property in the Chicagoland suburb. In the past, the arcade has debuted countless SEGA classics and hidden treasures including Space Harrier, Air Bike Cop, Star Wars Arcade and Ribbit.

As the arcade nears 800 games and hits its 10 year anniversary, arcade owner Doc Mack has long wanted to celebrate the milestone by debuting the ultra rare and expensive SEGA R360. The process to obtain one has been in the works for a while, with Doc even reaching out to SEGAbits for help in finding somebody willing to part with one. Thankfully, it looks like Doc’s efforts paid off as now, for the first time in decades, a functioning SEGA R360 machine is publicly playable in America!

The debut video, seen above, details the long process to obtain the machine and drops some interesting tidbits. Released in 1990 in Japan, and 1991 worldwide, the R360 was limited to only 150 machines and sold for $170,000. With inflation, thats a $340,000 machine! The machine only officially had two games: G-LOC Air Battle and Wing War, the former being the game in Galloping Ghost’s machine. For those wondering, the weight limit is 250 pounds, which is more than I actually expected from a SEGA Taiken (body sensation) machine.

The machine is available to play now, and I will certainly report on the experience of playing on it as soon as possible. Congrats to Doc Mack and his team for making this happen!

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