CP System III

CP System III

Manufacturer	Capcom
Release date	November 21, 1996 (1996-11-21)
Discontinued	September 13, 1999 (1999-09-13)
CPU	Hitachi SH-2 (@ 25 MHz)[1]
Display	Raster (horizontal), 384×224/496×224 resolution, 32768 colors on screen, 16,777,216-color palette
Sound	Custom 16-channel stereo audio chip
Input	8-way joystick, from 3 to 6 buttons
Predecessor	CP System II

The CP System III (CPシステムIII, CP shisutemu 3) or CPS-3 is an arcade system board that was first used by Capcom in 1996 with the arcade game Red Earth. It was the second successor to the CP System arcade hardware, following the CP System II. The arcade system saw new releases up until mid 1999. Technical support for the CPS-3 ended on February 28, 2019.^[2] It would be the last proprietary system board Capcom would produce before moving on to the Dreamcast-based Naomi platform.

Like its forerunners, games can be exchanged without altering the core hardware. This is accomplished on the CPS-3 by providing the necessary CD and game-specific security cartridges, where the contents of the CD are then loaded into memory with the security cartridge decrypting the contents stored within the system memory in run time.