CP System

Technical support for the CPS-1 ended on March 31, 2015. The CP System is best known for its many beat 'em up titles such as Dynasty Wars, Final Fight, The King of Dragons, Captain Commando, Knights of the Round, Warriors of Fate, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, and The Punisher, as well as fighting games such as Street Fighter II and Muscle Bomber. The development of the CP System hardware began in 1986 when Capcom president Kenzo Tsujimoto came up with the concept inspired by the success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), known domestically as the Family Computer (Famicom). He saw the rise of home video games as competition for the arcades, and stated that "the only way we can make money is to give people twice what they can get at home". After a number of arcade game boards designed to run only one game, Capcom also embarked upon a project to produce a system board that could be used to run multiple games, in order to reduce hardware costs and make the system more appealing to arcade operators. Capcom developed the hardware for about two-and-a-half years, during which time they developed two custom microchips known as the "CPS Super Chips", which were equivalent to the power of ten normal arcade boards at the time. The two chips cost around £5,500,000 or $9,800,000 (equivalent to $27,000,000 in 2025) to develop, and also served as the graphics hardware of the system. The system was plagued by many bootleg versions of its games.