Vrock

Having tons of fun with my retropie'd Galaga cab. Joust 2 today. I have it on the PS3, it's more fun on a cabinet in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.

Pac-man, you say? Odd, my Galaga cab seems to be defective. I'm going to make another control panel as I don't care for the way the first one turned out, but it works very well.

On the Galaga machine there is a slot on the panel, yes. I don't think there's a restrictor on the joystick. I see two switches on the bottom of the stick, and there's only one lead going from it to the board it plugs in to. This leads me to believe this is a legit 2 way stick, abeit a cheap one as we all know. I assume Pac Man will have a legit 4 way stick with two leads going from it into the board. If this isn't clear I can take it apart again and take a picture, let me know.

I had previously said the joystick in the Galaga machine wasn't a real two way stick. I took apart my panel today, and indeed it is a two way stick. The board that it plugs into is labeled for Pac-man, Galaga, and Space Invaders, by the way. Interesting for Pac-man as it's a four way stick setup. There's actually two ports for the joystick: up/down, and right left. So I can only assume the four way stick on the upcoming Pac-man machines will have two headers to plug into the board. Anyway, thought it was interesting.

I'm sure many of you have seen ETAPrime's tutorial on turning the Arcade1up into a Raspberry Pi cabinet. It's something I've entertained since the video came out. The thought of drilling holes into my Galaga control deck didn't appeal to me, though. So, I went to Lowe's, bought a $12 piece of MDF, and had the nice young man on the saw cut it down to 19" x 10 1/4", the dimensions of the factory deck. Then I drilled away, and my weak skills with a coping saw produced the cutouts on the sides. It won't win any carpentry awards, but once I'm finished painting, it will look and work good enough, and I can switch back to the factory board and configuration whenever I want. I went with this four button layout so I could play Vanguard. The two small holes are for 24mm select and start buttons, and the large hole on the right is for a hotkey button that Retropie needs. The intent is to put only vertical arcade games on the Raspberry, like Xevious and the Pac Mans, Zaxxon, and yes, Galaga and Galaxian. I've bought those games several times on various platforms, so why not make a cheap arcade cabinet using ROMS? We'll see how the rest of the install goes when my video board and amp get here.

So somehow I came home with a Galaga machine today. Sigh. Impressions: -Went together easily. Build quality isn't awful. Mine had some very minor scratches/marks on the plexiglas covering of the screen, which came out with some Novus. Probably wouldn't have noticed them at all while the machine was on. The MDF is actually pretty stout and the cabinet is sturdy. -Viewing angles on the screen are decent. Make no mistake, this is not a high end LCD. The black of space is a gray. It looks decent enough and the response time is suitable for Galaga/Galaxian. Overall, not bad. It looks much worse in pictures than in person. -The joystick seems to be a 4 or 8 way stick, but the cutout in the control panel physically limits it to mimic a two way stick. It works fine for the games on this cabinet.The ball top "spins" in the hand which could be annoying for some folks. -Emulation is good. There may be a very slight stutter in the opening music for Galaga, but other than that I have no complaints. -Galaxian is hard! I got to 4820 points the first go round. Bonus ships awarded at 7k. For Galaga, which I really like, I hit 75k on my first run thru -My box was dated 10/31 from Wally World. There *appears* to be a very thin plastic covering (like .5mm) on the control panel, but I could be imagining it. Anyway, it's in danger of being stepped on by a dwarf, but sitting on an ottoman in my movie room is perfect for playing it. The volume on the middle setting is just right for me. I wouldn't want it any louder. Would have been nice if they gave a knob instead of a switch, but eh. I had the chance to try the Asteroids machine in WalMart too. The panel was worn, the graphics were jaggy, and that dial was AWFUL. Major Havoc is really tough to play with it. I didn't bother with Tempest. Anyway, for now, I'm fairly pleased. I felt like I knew what I was getting into, and overall the machine has met my expectations thus far. It's a neat toy that will work well for occasional use. For the hardcore, go spend $2k on a multicade machine.

If you're a videophile of any kind it's the way to go. I love my Blu-ray and games on this thing. Best $1500 I ever spent.

I could get past the spinner. I could get past the dodgy trackball. But the aliasing on those vector games, oh my. What's this thing rendering at? 640 x 480? The PS4 Atari Collection looks MILES better, darn near close to a real vector display on my OLED TV. Maybe better, actually.

So much potential wasted here. Learnings from launch day/early adopters: -Dodgy trackball/spinner -Dodgy TN screen with poor viewing angles/scratches -Dodgy quality of cabinet -Lunar Lander thrust issues via the button -Aliasing on vector games I'm quite disappointed. I wanted the deluxe cab, but no way now, not at this price with these issues. I can keep playing my two Atari collections on my PS4, which cost only $40 for both. They look better and sound better at a tenth of the price. The controls aren't authentic, but arguably better than Arcade1up's. *Maybe* the Galaga/Pac-Man/Centipede cabs have potential. But still, call me when quality improves, or the cabs hit $199.

I'm wondering if this guy has used a trackball before. Or, it could be the trackball is that bad. Again, I wish Best Buy or somebody would set up a display game for us to pound on for a while. I've learned enough to know I won't buy one sight unseen/without some hands on experience.

r Retailer cost is a bit over $200 for these. Not sure what Arcade1up's cost is to make them, but you have to think it's under $200.

Deriving pleasure from someone else's misfortune, regardless of whether or not "they should have known better", makes you a jerk. Just saying.

I can live with clackety buttons that can easily be replaced with better buttons if desired (I know I know, we shouldn't have to "hack" a new item to make it acceptable), but the emulation *has* to be right. Otherwise these things are just expensive, pretty paperweights.

I guess I don't understand why the emulation would be different for the Deluxe vs. the Asteroids cab? Again, here's hoping Best Buy has a floor model to play with.

Man, that's a bummer. I wonder if it's just a bad cabinet/board/rom, or a larger issue. One would think that if the emulation was the problem, we'd have seen this in the Asteroids and/or Centipede cabinets. The one thing that does stick out is the blue tinted screen vs. the black screen of the other cabinet he had. Could be that cheap TN panel rearing its ugly head. I'd really like to see one of these in person to judge for myself. I want to support this product, but I'm not dropping $400 on a machine that doesn't work and has a bright blue screen vs black.

Shipping box, that's interesting. Based on what I have seen, the selling unit *is* the shipping box for these if you're buying from brick and mortar.

Hello all, been a lurker for a while and have read this thread with interest regarding the quality of these machines vs their price point. I happened to check the retailer's cost vs the MSRP of $299, and based on what I saw I estimate that a cabinet is costing Arcade1Up somewhere around $200 to make. The profit margins aren't huge on these at MSRP, but they aren't terrible either. Just thought this was interesting given the talk earlier about building your own vs buying one of these. Also, if this is the case, the quality of the machines is definitely something that we will need to assess long term. Personally, I'm excited about the Atari deluxe machine sold at Best Buy/Frys/Home Depot, but I'll wait for the reviews.