Maimai is an arcade rhythm game series developed and distributed by Sega, in which the player interacts with objects on a touchscreen and executes dance-like movements.

[5] In July 2019, Sega published Maimai DX, a reworked version of the game which featured new, second-generation cabinets.

After the phaseout of the older "classic" cabinets, many made their way to Europe and North America running the Finale version as offline-only builds.

[9] The defining feature of Maimai's arcade cabinet is its striking resemblance to a front-loading washing machine.

The original design was made in collaboration with Electronics manufacturer Sharp in Sega's Maimai LIVE 2014 Washing Festival event.

[11][12][13] To save their personal play data, players can use an "Aime" IC card with the machine to log into their account.

Before Maimai DX was released, it was possible to link a niconico account to upload a recording of the play from the camera built into the arcade machine.

The player must tap, hold or slide on the touchscreen or surrounding buttons in time with the music, depending on the type of note.

In-game settings[b] can be toggled to enable different displays to show the different types of judgements based on the player's preference.

The types of notes in the game include:[14] Like other touch based rhythm games, such as Chunithm and Wacca, many players wear gloves during gameplay in order to dampen the impact of hitting buttons and allow for easier sliding on the screen's surface, as well as to minimize injuries caused by friction, especially at higher levels of play.

[20] Within the 1 to 15 difficulty scale, each song is also assigned an internal decimal level number, with x.6 to x.9 being rounded to x+ in-game.

To enable these services, a Sega ID or other IC card with play data has to be linked.

[22] In earlier versions, if the game cabinet had a camera installed, players could record one of their played songs and access them on the website maimaiNET, which could then be downloaded and posted to sites like niconico and YouTube.