twalk
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Just a note to anyone still buying the old, no protector included, cabs: A1U is still ..usually.. shipping out panel protectors if you get a pic/scan of your receipt to attach and send them a nicely worded email (or call) saying that you bought the cab just recently and if they could send you a control deck protector I got a couple of the centipede machines for $75 recently and got them to send me a couple of protectors for free by doing that. It seems that most people are successful at this, but not everybody
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Rampage wasn't good because they didn't increase the control panel width. TNMT will have a wider control panel (from the picture)... but the players in the middle will probably still be crammed together and the players on the end will see a washed out screen unless they've got a better panel for it / viewing angle issue
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Keep in mind that these are really sold as limited time collectables (a Tastemakers standard way of doing things). They've now got the next batch of collectables out and they're certainly started prepping the Xmas shopping season wave already. For limited time collectables, Walmart nearly always heavily discounts them towards the end of their run Also they reported having hit $100M+ several months ago. That would be well over 300K cabs. While that number is huge for cab sales, it's not actually that many per Walmart, so with the shelf space these take up it could be a problem
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The sides and marquee are printed paper (instead of vinyl for a real arcade unit). I've seen them peel away a bit at the edges and it can be damaged by hitting it and/or abrasion, just like anything printed on paper. However I've pulled tape and stickers off of that several times before without issue. The kick plate looks painted the same as the control panel.. but it's unlikely that will be touched enough to have issues For the control panel, they've added a thin protective layer over the paint, along with shipping a plastic deck protector with every wave 2 box. You'll still want to use the deck protector, because people have reported that the thin protective layer over the paint will still come up around the edges
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Yep, they changed it. They announced a couple of months ago that they had a cutoff of March 1st for the free deck protectors With that said.... there's still a lot of wave 1 product in the channel and a lot of warranty part orders (deck protectors, board bug fix replacement) have been getting "lost" in the last 6-8 weeks... with them now charging (now for the deck protectors, later for other stuff)
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A1U definitely was able to get the license for a full sized arcade, they just found out by going somewhat smaller they could run on a license cost much more like a handheld game. Full sized arcade cab licenses are typically a nice bit higher. (I wouldn't be surprised if AtGames was able to negotiate lower license costs because of A1U.) At least that's what a A1U rep said back in Sept or so.. The retailer size / weight / density restrictions for products are a real thing. Microcenter is run differently, so it's not an issue with them (plus they want to sell DIY parts, so again, different). With Walmart, if you fall out of the sweet spot, they'll charge you for that or they could just decide to not carry your product. A1U wants to be in Walmart and other standard retailers, so they are selling something that fits within the standard restrictions. AtGames? They'll probably have to be more inventive with who they partner with / market to (Fry's? Lowes carried A1U and wouldn't have an issue with the size. Best Buy handles lots of appliances, so possible)
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Just a couple of things to add: 1) While I see issues with the A1U implementation, the idea of having a 46.5" tall cab + 12" riser (should really be 14"...) is pretty inspired. Items in boxes greater than 48" in any dimension have issues with getting into retail stores. In addition, being older, I now find I often prefer gaming while sitting down. With the issues of significant returns that A1U had, maybe there's room for competition with 3/4 cabs + risers 2) Now that you've got the license for Tron, you should definitely have 1 (maybe 2) different, pre-applied Tron related graphics wraps for the cab
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Mixed manufacturers is a matter of licensing. Licensing is mostly an issue of money. While it's not common, things like that have been worked out before
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Yeah, A1U would have been better off making a deluxe $400 "spinner cab", with Tempest being the marquee game, with Tempest cab style side panels, 6-8 spinner games, and a good spinner. While that would have mixed manufacturers on the cab, it would have taken care of all of the decent to good spinner / (left/right only) roller games in one swoop with good results @128Kgames: 2nd/3rd hand I heard that the A1U spinner will be a "professional" upgrade in their web store
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I didn't think that it would be like that, since it's pretty late in development, but I couldn't resist
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I now can't wait for my Homer cab
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I think that Bill mentioned something about a usb port for other controllers. Personally however, I really don't see the point. If I remember right, it's going to have a dual fightstick layout ( X2 joystick + 6 buttons ) and a trackball. That combo handles the great majority of games. Most of what it won't support are spinner based games (which are ok to leave out of something like this) and 3-4 player games (which could work.. sort of.. except there's no place to set the additional controllers, so they'd have to be hand held). Also, the more you'd use a different controller, the more I'd question why'd you'd bother to buy this cab because it seems to me you'd be better off just playing on a computer then If AtGames has someone who knows what they're doing mapping the buttons, we're probably fine with a static button map. Also, if the cab is updatable, then they'd be able to fix it (usb update) if they blow the layout (unlike A1U). A game like Defender will always have issues on a control panel made for other games. However it shouldn't be too bad on this, because you should have in a 6 button grouping the fire/thrust on right, hyper + smartbomb in the middle, and reverse on left
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Just to chip in my 2 cents... 1) Nostalgia is big. Really big. And for me at least, it's linked more to the cab artwork than anything. I really didn't need an Arcade1Up cab, because I can play all those games by other means. I ended up with 3 of them anyway, mostly because of the looks (and price, of course). Generic cab art with a potential post applied wrap really just doesn't do it. (I just about ran out screaming when I saw the art on the cab in Microcenter. Definitely don't be those guys.) That said, it doesn't need to be the artwork from a real cab, just something that invokes nostalgia. I saw glow in the dark Ghostbusters cab artwork recently on Reddit and that looked great. There's a quite a bit of "Flynn's Arcade" / TRON cab artwork out there that looks great. Of course that's another license fee for you guys to pay, but that's the kind of thing that would trigger a buy impulse from me and even get me to pay a bit more than otherwise. 6-7 different great pre-order cab artwork choices and you should be good 2) Weight / size: If I can't reasonably move it around myself, then I'm probably not going to buy it 3) Controls: A1U is now reported for the next cab batch being releasedå to be using the better of the 2 different joysticks that they were using (deemed by most to be "decent enough") and a happ trackball. They're upping their game and are setting a new base for what it takes to compete 4) Screen: Needs to be bigger than the standard 17" A1U screen. Something closer to 4:3 is preferable (since it makes a much better experience for vertical games played on a horizontal panel). TV quality screen is definitely preferred over the TN screen in A1U 5) Games: Arcade games! Console games were meant to be played on a TV screen and playing them on a cab is just *weird*... 6) Access: Any bugs should be able to be fixed / updated by an internet download to flash drive then updated from that. I'd really also want full-ish access to difficulty settings and so forth (by really any means) 7) Game selection: I've got a 2000+ game Pandora's 6 Box. It pretty much sits there, because of both decision paralysis (so.. many.. games..) and the problem that to select games you have to scroll down a list of 2000+ games without any organization and with a ton of garbage games cluttering things up. My brain just goes into rebellion just thinking about it. You definitely need organization
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If you click on the imgur link, it says happ on the trackball. I guess that it could be a clone that's stealing the name, but probably not. I'd bet more that happ made a cheaper one specifically for A1U
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