The CoasteRider X-Press was originally released in 1998 and was being manufactured until Ronbotics went out of business on August 13th 2002. The CoasteRider X-Press is a motion simulation roller coaster ride featuring music by Peter Frampton on 6 different roller coaster rides from the Cedar Point amusement park, many of which no longer exist as they have been converted into other coasters.
The Co-Founder, Dave Brain Sr, is quoted in the November 2000 issue of Play Meter Magazine as saying, “One of the things that we did was build the roller coaster as proof of a concept, We are trying to provide platforms to other manufacturers; that’s our core business” The goal was to have other companies upfit their motion platforms, such as the RB 2000, with whatever game they wanted without the high investment costs of designing a motion platform from scratch.
According to the company CoasteRider X-Press machines that made it to locations were massive successes. Frank Cutler, at the time the director of sales, stated, “We’ve seen figures as high as $2,000 per week at high traffic locations”. However While its stated in that magazine that they had clients designing simulators using the Ronbotics motion platforms, no other manufacture’s games on Ronbotics platforms are known. Which along with the massively declining arcade industry in the early 2000’s all certainly helped cause the Ronbotics bankruptcy.
The CoasteRider X-Press came in either a single-seater option with a 33in rear projection TV, or a dual-seater option featuring a 45in rear projection TV. The coaster features 6 speakers, 2 in each seat and 2 on the dash, alongside thumpers in the seats. The machine uses a very interesting way to run as it uses a standard off-the-shelf DVD player to play a DVD with the videos for all the rides, previews, coin input screens, and all the test screens. It uses a computer to control the DVD player via the S-Link port to select the track needed. To keep the motion in sync with the video, it actually uses the middle channel of the DVD audio to provide commands to the computer and motor controllers on how/when to move. According to a Wayback Machine scan of the Ronbotics.com website in 2001, the suggested retail price of the dual coaster was $17,995, Which, adjusted for inflation in 2025, would be over $32,000.