The Arcade Cabinet of Tomorrow
The stages of arcade cabinet hankering:
1. Authenticity: one wishes to own either a working cabinet, or an emulator residing within one.
2. Dissatisfaction: The crappy authentic cabinet you can actually afford is as big as a fridge, weighs 300 pounds and is generally a great ugly pile of chipboard. One game is not enough, and gutting it to slap in a computer just makes it nastier.
3. No way am I paying $3,000 for a nice custom one or $500 for the flimsy little junk "cabinet" that Target sold for a while.
4. Dreaming of something wonderful and different, like Martjin Koch's Retro Space.
The cabinet features arcade-quality Sanwa joysticks and buttons mounted on a sleek anodized aluminum control panel. The layout supports classic 1 & 2 person games (there's even a trackball) and includes over 100 licensed arcade classics and a suite of emulators. Retro Space also functions as an HD media jukebox that's equally at home with your music collection and 1080p video playback on its 24-inch 1920x1200 monitor.
Update: From Retrospace's Lara Verlaat:
We plan to do a limited edition first run this autumn of about 20-50 cabinets. We are looking for those of you with most interest to be on the front row. We are working very hard to get the final price for the units of this first run. Expect something in the range of 5000-6000 euros including VAT for a full working system.
Product Page [via RetroThing]
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Oh wow. Want. Did you email them for a price? With the monitor and the controls and the cabinet and the markup it's gotta be pushing $2k
I've emailed for a price, and will report back once I've gotten one!
Yeah, I emailed Martijn about a price when I posted, but he's apparently too busy hanging out with the sleek Cylon babe in the photo to respond to earthly queries.
She's fugly and has feet like a T1000
Joysticks, buttons, and a trackball. But no twriling knob, which means no Tempest. Drat.
I'm guessing 3-4k, easy. Maybe more...
Put me down for a guess of $7k.
The photo is a brilliant homage.
http://blogs.theage.com.au/screenplay/computerspace.jpg
Regarding the image linked at #8,
Is it just me or does that photo bear a striking resemblance to the "furniture" and her "cutting edge" game in Soylent Green?
There're a few thing I don't like about it, but I'll just mention two: I don't like the sharp corners. Just look at it and think about where your crotch would be.
Also, it doesn't look like the control panel is hinged. If you own this yourself you're gonna want all the microswitches to be snappy and the buttons to be rock solid. You don't want to have to bust out the screwdriver just to tighten a button.
You forgot a step:
5. Fantasizing about one day building a bar/mame cabinet into an old cocktail cabinet.
And Rodney, as far as needing the buttons to be easily accessible, sans screwdriver, I disagree: I have two mame cabinets and have never once needed to tighten a button. Replace buttons, yes, but never tighten. Remember, arcade buttons are meant to take all the abuse a 13-year-old can throw at it. The replacements for me are maybe once a year, one of the 12 buttons needs replacing. Besides, arcade cabinets are supposed to have those tamper resistant screws, otherwise its just not authentic....
Their product specs are mum on what kind of graphics card it has, so I'm guessing a lame onboard card. Blech.
X-Arcade at http://www.xgaming.com has been making mame cabinets, controllers, and other parts for a long time now, and I remember seeing a bare bones cab (you supply the pc) for only about 300 bucks at Frys a few years ago.
I came here to say what #4 did. Man, put something on that woman's feet. She's not a Cylon, she's a zombie!!!
...That one bears AbZero resemblance to the old vector game in Soylent Green. That one had no corners, remember?
Au contraire, Om. It's definitely the same machine. The cabinet in Soylent Green has a white finish, but it's otherwise identical. (I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'corners,' because the image at #8 has a definite rounded-corner design.)
You had me doubting myself, so I busted out the ol' bargain bin DVD.
I think the comely model, Cylon or no, helped me make the connection.