Thousands of people have tried it As well many Pinsiders. http://www.vpforums.org/ I built one as well, problem is. The games do not feel right. I plan on throwing mine away to be honest. But, I plan on making a portable one that just pops up on your computer table and uses whatever computer you plug it into.

its good startng base just depends on how you want yours to be as there so many options out there. You can spend a few hundred or sky is the limit. I had one that made from a robocop cab so it was full sized.

I have considered building one for years, but it is hard to be motivated while curating my pins....."Catch 22ish". They are fun, but they don't seem to satisfy my pinball fix.

Wow, that's in NZD, so more like $575 in USD. I have a hard time believing he got the three displays and the cabinet and all the other hardware for all that. Must have had pieces laying around.

It can be done. Used TVs are a dime a dozen, as well as used computers...or if you have an older one laying around. I have all the pieces right now, that would likely sell for $600 or less, if I sold them separately on CL, or Ebay.

I guess the biggest unknown is the cabinet. They can be pricey brand new (if you are staying within a $600 budget), so i am guess you have to wait until an empty shows up locally?

Yep, I have given away a few cabs for this very purpose.....only when the Cabs were wasted. Sometimes I just have to let stuff go with a free CL pickup ad. My bungalow can only hold so much.

Nothing like the real thing.

Being in the cabinet with the flashers and force feedback definitely helps, but don't go in thinking it will be close to the same thing. The latest VP update definitely helped in the physics department, but it's still not there yet. As long as you fully understand it's a video game and will play like a video game, it can be fun.

If you like pinball and expect this to be anything like playing pinball you will be sorely disappointed. The technology is just bad. It's all home brew and feels amateur at best. The worst part is that all the tables feel super flat and the physics are garbage. save your money and buy an old 80's SS table.

Pinballbulbs had some nice tabletop examples at the NW Pinball Arcade show this past weekend. They're portable and they are better than playing on your PS3/Ps4 as you don't have the same lag that haunts Pinball Arcade, and definitely feels more like pinball machine. They are very fun and can hold hundreds of games and also have a joystick for various video games outside of pinball.
Problem is the price tag is still pretty steep at $2499.00.

I've considered building or buying one but can't justify the cost and space for one. They are cool but just don't feel even close to a real pinball machine to me. Personally I prefer to play the iPad, XBOX One, PS4 or PC version of The Pinball Arcade to get my virtual pinball fix. It's far cheaper then building or buying a virtual pinball cabinet and doesn't require any tweaking to play.

Another idea I've been throwing around is to build a pinball controller box similar to below for my XBOX One. The Pinball Arcade games look great and it would be nice to have a controller to use while playing them on my TV or 130" projection screen, haha. My plan is to buy a wired or wireless XBOX One controller, tear is down and build a controller like below for it. Maybe I can do this for $100 tops and it would save me the expense and space of building a virtual pinball cabinet.

pbw-product-new.jpg

The item above was out of stock and desisted for a long time but I just noticed it's back up. Still out of stock though... $300

https://store.nanotechent.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=61&product_id=62

There is a nanotech controller on craigslist in Manhattan Not mine

I played a virtual pinball at Allentiwn, terrible. I walked away mid way through scared stiff after I hit the left ramp like 25 times in a row. It's nowhere near the same as a real game. Nice concept, though.

Would definitely be the ideal route if they had one of these for a decent price. Mad Catz have built controllers for RockBand and Guitar Hero, I don't see why they or others couldn't do it.

Thanks! I contacted the guy. I wonder if the original company just quit making them? I thought I heard a while back that they sold the design to Virtuapin but I've never seen them release something similar.

This would be sweet, you could make it duel purpose, and add a joystick, and hook ups for a PC too.

http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=11816

As good as a real pinball? No. But is Call of Duty the same as being in a real war? No but still fun.
I have about 49 games on mine mostly DMD games, a few older and a few Pinball FX2 games, some of which are a lot of fun, more fantasy stuff on them.

Feel of the game is definitely improved with force feedback stuff, contactors for solenoids, motor and shaker. Flashing lights ???
Quality of the look and feel of the game depends on the designer and your settings. You can change the appearance quite a bit in those settings. You can also change flipper settings pretty easily if you don't like the way they are working. Some games play really well and there are often several versions of a game to chose from. The night time MM is really good in appearance and play. Most of us can't have 50 games. I have 5 the digital pin being one of them. It was also a fun project.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/after-sttng-restorationvirtual-pinball

Mine is a full sized widebody cabinet with a 46" LED TV for the playfield. I have 75 tables running. The machine is fun for me. It's not real pinball but the software is continually getting better.

You and I have very different opinions on "fun"!

Regardless of the settings - you can't make it not flat.

I had one for a year with 140 tables on it. For the money and given its limitations, it was quite enjoyable. I have about a dozen pins (give or take at any given time), so I was not often drawn to the virtual pin, but I think it is a reasonable option for someone with very limited space and/or funds.

If someone had space for, say, nine pins max - they could have their 8 favorite games plus one virtual pin cabinet that could theoretically emulate every game they don't have. A friend of a friend did this, but then he got to comparing the eight games he had with their virtual counterparts and saw how the virtual versions just didn't measure up. He wound up selling the virtual cab and replacing it with a ninth actual pinball.

^ I don't disagree with this, although I still think I'd rather have one virtual pin than one traditional pin. I'd get bored with the latter a lot sooner than the former.

They aren't for everybody, but I am enjoying the 150+ games on my virtual pin.

For me, I needed the tactile feedback and the form factor in order to make it worth the $$$. A shaker motor, nudge board, and actuators to emulate the "feel" of flippers and other mechanics was essential for me. Is it real pinball? Of course not... but I have a heck of a lot of fun with the cabinet and I get to play a lot of tables in addition to the 3 real machines I own.

Oh, it was a bit more than $800, though.

VP Cab - Luci.JPG

*Double Post*

Damn that is sweet. Where can one get that???

Looks like one from vpcabs.com

Very cool vendor. If you're in the market for a new one pre-built I would suggest them.

Thanks fellas!!

It sounds like the smaller your pin collection - the better for one of them to be a virtual cab to expand the number of games to play. How small a collection needs to be for a virtual pin to take up a spot would be up to each individual, since one person might find enough variety in owning four actual pins while another person might prefer three actual plus one virtual.

Here's a custom one we just finished up for a fellow Pinsider!!

image.jpg

I made one before I got into real pins. Then I got a ToM and the virtual pin lost its appeal. 5 games later I'm not looking back.

Yep, it's a VPcabs LE.

Brad (shakenbake), Lonnie, and the gang over at VPcabs make a heck of a product and they are fantastic to work with. They spend a lot of time refining their product and I highly recommend them!

Yep, I fully agree. If I had the room (and the wifey approval!) for 20+ machines, I probably would have less inclination to own a virtual pinball machine. The value of the virtual pinball machine is getting access to emulations of 100s of pinball machines I don't own.

Tables looked really flat in the past, but they are starting to make some improvements.

Avengerfs.jpg

I've been putting a virtual cabinet together for months for my game room. I debated doing it for a while, but ultimately thought it would be a fun project. My father retired in January and as an electrical engineer he got excited at the idea of a project where we could integrate software with hardware features. I did it from the ground up (cabinet kit, new computer, three screens, contactors for force feedback, shaker-motor, gear motor, strobe lights, multiple flashers, RGB ground effects and all buttons RGB, etc.).

So, as a project it has been fun (and challenging). I'll probably be "finished" by the end of this month (have a few more flaws I'm waiting for parts to deal with). The physics are different of course (though I hear Visual Pinball 10's beta is doing a lot of nice improvements on physics), but such is the nature of video games. Like my MAME cabinet, I really like the idea of a multi-table entertainment solution (but one designed with the pinball experience in mind). I've got four actual machines just off the game room set up in the garage for those who want the real deal, but most of my friends actually are more familiar with digitized pinball than the physical side, and to them a game is a game.

I personally was not interested in buying a built one. Putting it together is the neat part of the experience, in my opinion. I've got just under 130 tables configured in mine.

Here is my 42" VirtuaPin with LEDWIZ force feedback (8 contactors to simulate flipper coils and bumpers), flashers, strobe light, real knocker, Vishay DMD, gear motor, shaker and digital plunger installed. I also installed a 10 speaker system with external subwoofer to really pump out the bass when playing music pins like ACDC etc. The amp is always at 10

Currently at 266 tables installed of which the majority use DOF (Direct Output Framework) to utilize the installed toys. Visual Pinball 10 is turning out to be a beauty in the hands of talented developers. Kingpin Beta just released is awesome!

20150415_183659.jpg

20150610_163749.jpg
20150610_163702.jpg

Hey, thanks.

These types of projects are definitely really fun and can be built fairly easily on a budget for sure. Ours runs all of the vertical mame roms, pinball fx2 pre installed and purchased, pinball arcade, ikaruga and procyon, and visual pinball, analog nudge, and we wrote all our own software for a super easy to use front end too so works great for even the novice. It has quite the beefy computer and graphics card. We warranty ours and made it for production so that made it quite a bit more expensive.

But with some used computer parts and a cheap used cap you can definitely whip up something fun that works great pretty much in a week or so or longer depending on your hobby alloted time etc.

I got a gutted Doctor Who for $200 on craigslist. LED tvs cost nothing these days, paid $250 for a 40" insignia for my playfield, fit like a glove without decasing. Got a 29" with a small scratch on the screen for $90 on ebay, fit perfect for my backglass. And for my DMD I used a old 19" Dell VGA monitor from the basement. The computer I had laying around and put a $100 video card into it, runs like butter.
Few other buttons and parts, I built mine for less than $800.

The games are a great way to introduce you into rule sets, and what real pinballs you might want to buy, its certainly no substitute. But I would have never bought a real one if I hadn't built my virtual one first to get the bug.

^^^ and plugging in headphones

Damn Sexy Shakenbake, that custom Robotech artwork looks awesome on your new cab design.

Agree you can't make it not flat, it is a TV. But then again you watch sports on a flat TV, you watch TV on a flat TV, you play video games on a flat TV.

Would I prefer to have a real Medieval Madness, Funhouse, AC/DC, Flintstones, Guns and Roses, Tails of the crypt, Black Knight 2000, and 40 other games? Absolutely but I can't so this will do. I don't play this more than my real games, but I do play it and when company comes over it is played a lot. For a 7 year old nephew that loves cars, can't get him to stop playing Corvette

Medieval Madness.jpg

As long as you realize that a virtual pinball table is no more like real pinball, than playing rock band is no more like being in an actual band.

It is a great tool to learn multiple rules to a variety of pinball machines very quickly. Beyond that, not much appeal for me to spend the time to create.

It's as simple as this: if you like video games AND pins, you'll like visual pinball. If you only like pins, you won't.