The arcade release featured an overhauled (second generation) cabinet design with a widescreen display, e-Amusement and USB access, and an improved sound system.

DDR X was called a "truly global version", with a multi-regional release by all three major Konami houses.

Konami promised that at least 70 songs would be featured in this release and that DDR X would bring with it enhanced graphics and new modes of play.

[6] On the same day, Konami released gameplay preview images and video that showcased new graphical content.

The difficulty rating scale was extended resulting in existing songs in the series being re-rated to compensate.

Previously licensed music from earlier DDR series has returned including Me & My's "Dub-I-Dub" and Smile.dk's "Butterfly".

Moving across a map, players guide themselves from one dance challenge to the next, meeting new characters and visiting different locales along the way.

Shortly thereafter, on July 9, 2008, Konami sent out a press release to DDRUK (a DDR and music gaming fan community, with a particular emphasis on the European market) that said DDR X would be a "truly global version", mentioning that the Dancing Stage name would be dropped in favor of Dance Dance Revolution, confirming the game's pending release in Europe as an arcade title.

[8] Naoki Maeda, one of the sound producers for the Bemani series, pointed out on his TËЯRA blog that repeated requests from the fans of DDR were partially responsible for the decision to redesign the game's hardware.

Improvements included a widescreen LC display, better sound system, new modes of gameplay, a link system between the arcade and PlayStation 2 version of the game, the ability to publish step edits across all arcade machines via e-Amusement using a standard USB drive and a new type of arrow called a Shock Arrow, one that is to be avoided instead of stepped on.

An issue of Arcadia Magazine confirmed other details, such as the presence of some of the "x-edits" and licenses from the US PS2 version, Koko Soko by Smile.dk and announced that there would be a collaboration song with Naoki and Smile.dk present.

[4] A December 20 posting confirmed that songs from the home version DDR Hottest Party would appear on DDR X, demonstrated by a screenshot showing new doubles steps for a song inferred to be from one of the Hottest Party games and a dance stage backdrop from the game.

[16] The North American release was prepared at the 2009 ASI Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada, in March, which revealed that the game would be released in North America by May, and that e-Amusement service would be available for a monthly subscription on launch.

Despite the new overhauled cabinet design available, the dance stage layout remains almost completely unaltered to the original, except in North America, where aesthetic changes were made to cut costs in production.

Difficulty ratings ranging from 1 to 10 are shown with yellow blocks, and 11 to 20, overlapping the first ten, in red.

Also, all options have been color-coded to indicate whether a player has altered it (white), or not (green) and assigned colors for various difficulties, just like being shown during song selection.

The "edit data" functionality which was dropped after DDR Extreme has also returned, players are able to make edits with the Japanese PS2 version of Dance Dance Revolution X and play them on the Japanese arcade version.

Although the ability to use PlayStation memory cards for edit data between arcade and console versions was present between the special "link version" of 2nd Mix and Extreme, X utilizes USB flash drives for this functionality rather than PlayStation memory cards.

A program will be released for PCs that will allow users to create and share edits to save to these cards.

It was said from a Konami representative that a partnership with the Brunswick Zone arcade chain had fallen through and they have yet to find an interested partner for the service.

[34] 1UP's Torrey Walker gave the game a C−, describing Street Master Mode as "painfully dull and repetitive".

The soundtrack was described as "a clutter of uninspiring off-brand dance tracks, with captivating licensed songs few and far between" (citing a poor stepchart for U Can't Touch This), and the announcer was dubbed "unintentionally hysterical".

[19] As was stated by Konami at ASI,[5] significant changes were made to the DDR X and X2 cabinets released outside of Asia, including North America and Europe.

In comparison to models that had been exhibited before release, the new cabinets featured different lighting and sound systems, the inclusion of USB ports rather than SD cards as had been previously announced, and a monitor experiencing large amounts of lag.