is it the thought that really counts?

[rone]

During Costco Death March today, i saw the Ultimate Arcade stand-up unit.  Eighty-one classic games.  Great stuff.  But the price is outrageous ($2000 in the store).  You can buy old video games for $10; assume that price for ancient, if "classic", games, and the cost of the stand-up arcade is $810.  So is the hardware worth $1200?  Highly doubtful.  Why are these pinheads trying to gouge classic game lovers?  People will probably stick to their homemade stand-up arcades with a PC and MAME as guts.

Comments

[wisn.livejournal.com]

It's pitched to people who believe in owning arcade ROMs legally or never heard of MAME (or can't be arsed to scrounge for ROMs). The cabinet is reported to be well-made, and the hardware/software is proprietary, but my uninformed guess is most of your purchase price goes to the license fees (thus the relatively low number of games). So it depends on whether you're into the retroness or not.

I'm not spending a lot of time on research since I'm not into it but there are some semi-informed comments on it here (http://www.bannister.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=print_topic;f=26;t=004354).

[(Anonymous)]

Thing is - I own the majority of those roms legally. Atari's roms can be purchased, I think, from Starcade... I forget whom. Capcom's - well the MAJORITY of them I got when I purchased my hanaho joystick... not sure on the more modern ones. They were rather inexpensive, really.

Several of those, tho, I have not seen legal avenues for other than buying the board... which of course,yes, is cheaper if you find it on ebay or from a distributor locally, etc. etc.

Still, well... I mean, I'm building my own eventually, and, well, it... it just looks like crap with that artwork (: seriously, I want one side to have Raiden from MK2 and one side to have Orchid from Killer Instinct 2. ... and then the tron bits... well I just need a tron cabinet. Cuz. Tron.

[benchilada.livejournal.com]

http://www.ultracade.com/arcade/59/ultracade8482-multi-game-system

The one I've played recently...

[kodi]

I can't imagine they're pitching that at anyone who would be considering a MAME cab as an alternative - they don't give any details at all about the monitor or the controls.

[joepro.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what everyone else said. That thing is cool but that is way too much money. If you are a rapper or professional athlete, buy this.

[mdyesowitch.livejournal.com]

I got hoppie the Midway version for significantly less (~$400). It has hookups for a other game systems or a DVD player too, so it's at least slightly expandable. It only has a few built-in games: joust, defender and defender II, and sinistar and some other lameish/fun games like bubble, which I remember loving as a kid.
The other disadvantage is that it's short. About 3+feet high (32"), but hoppie's brother in law is making a stand for it and that will prop it up to reasonable height.