This is in the break room at my new job...

[Eltigro]

Guess I know what I'll be doing during lunch...

 

[HatefulGravey]

Thats one hell of a new job. Gotta love that.

[pce_collector]

Why did I convince my boss to buy a Keurig for the break room instead of this?

[HatefulGravey]

I and a few people that work with me have been trying to talk the boss into letting me put one of my MAME machine in the break room here. That just isn't going to happen I feel quite certain.

[Brian O]

1) Where do you work?

2) Are they hiring?

 

-B

[SoulBlazer]

So is that actually a MAME machine or did Midway actually release that arcade game? Which 12 games are on there? Set to free play or you pay?

[RARusk]

It's not a true MAME machine. It's one of those licensed emulation machines but made to look like a arcade cabinet. JCPenneys sold those at Christmas time years ago so I had a good look at them. Look at the controls - those are not arcade quality. It uses a small monitor and composite video. I wasn't too impressed by it just by looking at it.

 

I never really played it but saw others play around with the display unit. The emulation appears to be reasonably good despite the unimpressive hardware. It does boast a good line-up of classic titles though which still makes it a good entertainment unit.

 

The main concern is the controls. To me they look flimsy and I don't know how long they will last before they start breaking or whether they can be replaced with regular arcade controls.

[SoulBlazer]

Cool, thanks for the extra info. I can't read out all 12 games included in that, do you recall what they are?

 

And didn't Midway go bankrupt last year? Who has the rights to their games now?

[SlowCoder]

To your wife, "damn the benefits. They've got an arcade!"

[Reaperman]

It's a nice thought to make employees happier, but those are pretty much wastes of space.

[SRGilbert]

Those were available at different stores. Basically, it's a plug-and-play game inside an inexpensive arcade cab. Fun enough to mess around on, but not something a serious classic gamer would find appealing. Still, pretty cool to have one in the break room, I just hope it can put up with regular use.

[onmode-ky]

That specific Midway machine (which was licensed rather than produced directly by Midway; the firm which made the machines has since gone out of business, judging from the death of their website) was first offered in Target stores in autumn 2005 for $500. It was discussed in several threads here at the time. This thread is the first one I found through forum search that specifically talked about this unit, and it was also talked about a year later in this thread with follow-up products from the same company. There are other valid results from searching the forum for "target midway" as well.

 

The general evaluation at the time: the games are decent ports but displayed on a poor 13" TV and with rickety controls, and the cabinet is too small for an average adult. For what you were getting, $500 was (way) too much for most of us. The prices dropped later in the holiday season, though I don't know if they ever went below $350.

 

Come to think of it, I didn't join in the discussions about the system at the time it was launched because I was still a lurker then and hadn't signed up as an AtariAger yet.

 

onmode-ky

[+FujiSkunk]

My last job had a multi-game arcade cabinet in the break room, along with a pinball machine and a TV with an XBox 360. It was a tech support job for a web hosting company, which means you needed perks like this to keep people from just quitting out of sheer frustration.

 

I'm only half joking, but really the company actually did know how to treat their employees, a rarity among tech support jobs it seems.

Edited August 24, 2012 by FujiSkunk

[Eltigro]

The job is at Target, actually and it's probably an old display or something. And like has been mentioned above, it's not that great. It's a little short for me to be comfortable (I'm about 6ft tall) and there are some issues with the video (some buildings are invisible on Rampage as well as the bridges over the lava that you start out with on Joust). The screen is small, also. But it is free and better than watching soap operas on break. It also doesn't appear to save high scores.

[Protoplasym]

flawless victory

[AtariTexas]

Theres one of these machines on Craigslist in our town for $175

[Cobra Commander]

Looks like a Tatio cab.

[HatefulGravey]

Theres one of these machines on Craigslist in our town for $175

 

So you atleast went to look at this machine right? I can't imagine that thing working would be worth less than $175.

[Rik]

Great!!!! Now we have to convince bosses to put a strip joint in our break rooms.

[Rik]

Great!!!! Now we have to convince bosses to put a strip joint in our break rooms.

[Eltigro]

Sigh... there's a new district manager and the store managers were running to "clean up" the "off stage" areas and decided that the arcade machine had to go. I come in one day and it's gone. I guess they just threw it in the compactor.

[Dripfree]

Funny you posted this. I work at Target also. I was in electronics about 6 years ago and we had these come in for christmass. I got the fun job of assembling it to be a display unit. When Christmass was over they put it in the break room. It's behind me right now. The next christmass we got one with all the Konami sports games but they decided to sell that display. It's pretty cool it has a cart slot for adding games too.

[0078265317]

Sigh... there's a new district manager and the store managers were running to "clean up" the "off stage" areas and decided that the arcade machine had to go. I come in one day and it's gone. I guess they just threw it in the compactor.

 

You could of offered to buy it from them.

[Hatta]

Poor emulation, lousy controls, small composite monitor, and limited selection of games. IMO, not worth the floor space if it were free.

[Dripfree]

Where is your Target. I work in wi. Just curious if I should be expecting ours to go into the compactor any time soon