I want to know where you find these 300.00 arcade machines???? I can't find a good empty cabinet for that price!

Jody here is my response to his statement (keep in mind that he is human and not some out of this world intelligence) that he +1 which I'm guessing doesn't mean he disagrees or thought I was wrong.

"Unless i forgot what plywood looks and feels like at least 50% of my vids over the years (50+) have been made of it. we have 12 vids in our game room now and other than the occasional musty smell from a cab that has not been cleaned properly our room smells great! if you come across cabs with that smell then sealing them usually does the trick."

Games out of the box can have issues. and yes for 3-400 dollars there are a world of options awaiting you. Tell me if they are charging anything for Mame these days. There are 48-1 boards (jamma = easy most adaptable configuration ever) that sell on KLOV for $50 every week. Stripped cabinets given away for $100 or less all the time. Empty ones if you want the "low maintenance" flat screen options. Craigslist is in every town if you don't care to join the forum, but I do recommend you join as I think you will like it. Then there is the other plug in play setups that are basically a CP with a multitude of guns, joysticks, buttons, trackballs, exc and thousands of games so you can play whatever whenever. The availability is endless.

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Blake

now I know your joking.

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Blake

Yes your starting to see these at shows regularly. Pintastic had a vendor doing something pretty similar, size wise.

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Blake

Possibly not. According to many Pinside experts, East Coasters can find everything much cheaper than the rest of the U.S.A.

Nope,not a joke at all! Maybe they are a dime a dozen in your area, but not in my neck of the woods! I have been keeping a eye out for a empty cabinet for some time now!

Well I'll have to chalk up my vid and pin purchases to geography then and consider myself for all these years lucky.

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Blake

are you on KLOV? Its a great resource for that sort of thing.

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Blake

I am a member, but I admit I have not been on KLOV in sometime! I will have to check it out!

yea ill keep my eyes out for you too. Honestly there are a lot of great deals over there on vids.

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Blake

also here is a pretty cool cocktail close to you for a decent price. probably could get it for $100 less. tons of games.

kansascity.craigslist.org link

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Blake

Heres another in an upright. Maybe throw out $500. He has already swapped out to an LCD.

kansascity.craigslist.org link

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Blake

also if someone wanted a dedicated asteroids this looks to be a good example at a decent price. again its craigslist so who knows what they will actually take but I always offer less.

kansascity.craigslist.org link

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Blake

Biggest bull shit I’ve read on pinside in a long while. You just lost credibility with me. You are clearly talking about something that you know kothing about. I don’t even have to read the rest of your post.

You don’t know me. I am an informed consumer that knows the products and services that work best for me. If there is a product or service that I desire I research it and make an informed decision.

I don’t care what your excuse is now, you seem to clearly have a vendetta against these mini cabinets.

Thanks for your snap judgments of me and what I know.

I started collecting dedicated arcade games before pinball and still do. For some to say that a midget size novelty with crap controls is threatening to arcade collectors is laughable.

Today, people just want to revisit games they used to play and most don't care or want an original arcade cabinet. They are just too huge and heavy and play only one ancient game.

I used to be into arcade games in the late 90s to early 2000s but once I discovered emulation I realized I could have "one cab to rule them all". Prior to that I used to have a few JAMMA cabs that I would swap PCBs in and out of to minimize the # of arcade cabinets I had.

Sure, the original games look cool, but my epiphany came when stepping up to my mint, restored Ms Pac I completed and played a game. I was bored into the 2nd maze and wondered why I was taking up that much space for a boring game.

If I was still into arcade games, then I'd certainly consider getting one or two of these systems. They look cool, can move by yourself without help or a handcart and most importantly the gameplay is identical to an original arcade machine.

I don't get arcade collectors anymore - I used to get it back when an original arcade game was the only way to play the game. But don't get the guys who clamor for a $700 Burger Time game or whatever. And that's fine because why should I care?

Agreed. I'm not sure where that idea came from.

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Blake

It came from folks/operators/arcade salesman like yourselves coming on here and constantly telling us how stupid these are and what a mistake it is to buy one.

Who judged who? And wrong fully so I might add. But I don't think id go as far as saying ive lost respect for you or don't care to read your posts as that's why I'm here. Sorry if you feel the opposite.

here is your question:

Blake, I gotta ask. Do you sell arcades? Are you an arcade tech? Do you build MAME cabinets?

Just curious, you seem to really have something against people buying these over real cabinets. I get that it’s not for you, but you really seem to be trying to discourage people from getting these.

I don’t get it. What’s your motivation?

here is my answer:

information is power and you like many others here are uninformed on buying, selling, fixing, and owning arcade machines. If members here really disliked working on machines, spending money on tools and learning about what you need to do to keep them working properly no one here would own a pinball machine. There isn't an OP or arcade owner on planet earth that would tell you vids are more of a headache then pins. I've owned and operated both. I have a game room at home with both. I can tell you with out hesitation that vids are cheaper to buy and fix. and when properly gone through are extremely dependable in comparison to pins. I'm blown away by the lack of knowledge of these coin op machines by fellow pinheads. I've met vid guys who are similar in knowledge on pins but there only gripe is usually price. And you would be hard pressed to sell them a pin made so cheaply as what product we are discussing.

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Blake

The inability to adjust the operator menu or even the LCD adjustment settings are two big strikes against them. I'm sure the operator menu being "locked" is to prevent people from turning off free play and somehow adding coin mechs/DBVs.

I have to disagree with a few points being brought up:
Size, the amount of square footage saved is nominal
Smell (or lack there of) I've had a myriad of machines, the few that had a smell got a coat of primer inside and that fixed it. Seems like a reach.
Portability, how often are you going to pack them up and take them somewhere?

Break/Fix: These aren't likely to break for a long time, if they do break most of us will be able to fix most of the issues; they don't have a lot of moving parts. I think we need to pull on the reigns a bit until we find out more about what this thing is running and how everything connects up.

There is a market for these machines, but I still think the product has too many issues for that market.
Limited number of games (don't say dedicated cabs only run 1 game, there are lots of multigame cabs that don't use emulation)
no updates/expansions (adding games for a fraction of the price sounds like a good idea to me)
Controls looks super cheap(hopefully easy to swap)
no LCD adjustments (unknown how easy it will be to change LCDs)
no volume knob (I'm sure a potentiometer could be easily added)
Even with the booster seat the CP seems pretty low
The width of Rampage is definitely an issue, and the fact you cant play 3 player gauntlet hurts it too.

All that being said, I think they are still really neat and the kid in me wishes one was an option when I was young.

Yea I joined 4 years ago knowing this thread was going to be created so I could bust your balls about the Nome Arcade Machine.

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Blake

Good perspective. Every time I speak it insights aggression so ill let someone else talk.
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Blake

Incites, goddamnit!

(Goes off to break stuff)

thank you. I always say I'm bad at math and spelling and I got those skills or lack thereof from my mother.

Blake

I have to say, I'm surprised at the amount of interest in these things. The Tiny Arcades, sure...those are $15 novelties to put on a shelf. But calling these even 3/4 scale is pretty generous. They're closer to half scale. Even with the child sized control height though, the square footage saved over a full size cabinet is minimal.

I understand wanting a casual, maintenance free experience, but hell... you can get that with a Jakks Pacific plug and play unit for 20 bucks and toss it in a drawer when you're done. A lot of games can be played on PC without even hassling with MAME, or on any number of arcade compilations for consoles.

It's more a case of too big to be casual, to small to be serious for me.

Ignored user to thin this topic to relevant posts and filter out alot of useless blah blah blah

Thanks
Blake

C4AC956C-E832-4B28-807F-B2DA7ED2A4EB (resized).jpeg

Oh shit, I’ve bought those toys too... I guess I’m not a true pinball enthusiast.... Like, I mean, I only have one full sized pin (GoT), two full sized arcades (MAME), and one sit down driving set up (gran tourismo). So, like I don’t even have a valid opinion, right?

I've got a zizzle also. Perfect for my wife's 2nd grade classroom. Took it home last year for my kids and her class was pissed! Putting it back this year. I'll deny I said this but after upgrading the power supply, putting real rubbers on it and adding some graphics it's actually kind of fun.

I think you make a lot of great points, but:

The power switch is on the top. Unless you are thinking about short people

I think these games are pretty cool for what they are. I would love it if the casuals would pick these up and leave the original arcade games alone.

Billy Mitchell wouldn't be caught DEAD playing one of these abortions. Am I right? I'm right, right?
Nope.

No, because he'd be called a cheater if he got a hi score.

Is there a Ben Heck teardown video out?

Don't get me wrong, it's no surprise that most people don't own vintage cabs and I'm glad these are doing well. If these save original cabs from being mame'd or 60-1'd and help bring their prices back down, so much the better.

I'm just surprised at their popularity. At $300-$400 it's still a lot of money for a handful of games for Joe Casual, especially those single moms. It's enough to buy any of the current consoles, and again, they all have multiple arcade compilations available. They still require a substantial space commitment that consoles and plug and plays don't.

I would have thought they were in a price/functional no man's land, but I was obviously wrong.

Ataris are the worst, but in a home environment most collectors have a power strip every few machines or remote switches.

20180817_181313 (resized).jpg

I bought 3 shitty build cocktails years ago for twice the price from a dick. These can`t be any worse for construction!

Definitely, many arcade games have bad locations for the power switch (Staring directly at you Nintendo!!)

If these are successful I’d love to see a Stern Berzerk/Frenzy cab. There’s never been a licensed true arcade home conversation of these games.

By all accounts they’ve been a huge success. The company said sales exceeded expectations. Some retailers are already sold out.

Most of that stuff is a stretch; a few things are wrong like the weight, power switch issues, and number of games in a reunion cab (regular pacman is on there too). I also know the number of games being so limited was done on purpose, but its still a strike against the cab, specifically the SF cab. Its pretty much just 2 games and they definitely should have added an Alpha game instead of 2 versions of Super.

I'm in no way trying to say no one should buy one just saying why I don't plan to. I think honest criticism of the product is fine but these comparisons to real cabs seem disingenuous.

Seems these are ripe to be hacked or reworked with a RaspberryPi - can probably put whatever other games you want on one soon. I'll be interested to see that...

I really want to see a TMNT and X-Men unit.

I really want a few of these but want to wait to see what people say about the quality... when are they supposed to start shipping?

EDIT: looks like September 27th

Riser ships oct 17th

Ms.Pac doesn't weigh as much as a reunion cab. Reunion has a 25" tube instead of a 19" tube. If you wanted to cite a heavy cab, a 3 player RevX is a boat anchor.

Your line of comparison was all based on MsPac, MsPac's power switch isn't in a terrible position. Sure Gauntlet has a crummy power switch location but a NeoGeo has the switch right inside the coin door. I just don't get the point other than to just pick out the worst thing about multiple cabs and present them as common place across the majority of cabs.

I could do the same thing and say NBA Jam is better because there's a volume pot on the PCB. A playchoice-10 is better because it can play 10 games at a time and the games are easily swap-able. Mortal Kombat is better because it has a bigger screen. Any game is better because it has a marquee that's back lit and I can access the operator menu ,etc,etc,etc

Comparisons are always going to draw a bias and thats why I was giving my opinion based on what it is, instead of what its emulating.
We are in agreement that these are two very different things.

I dont understand why the arcade collector would dislike these toys. Wouldn’t it mean more availability of the REAL games for you to have

If real arcades are selling for ~600 currently, then how much would the price sky rocket if 1 or 2 million new people suddenly entered into the hobby? Weve seen the pirice of pinballs more then double in my area in the last decade. What do you think will happen to your cheap games?

If the price of an original arcade (let’s say street fighter) was $2000 because of market demand, would you still say that these toys have no market value?

Can you link to this movie? I cant find it. Thanks

I don't know if you're lumping me in as an upset arcade cab collector but I'm not; I just wish the product was a little better. Cheers!