That generally wouldn't be practical on a typical cabinet setup. There is not "N" key (or any other keys for that matter), so how would the user enter letters to search for.
What DOES work very well in mala is to split your game lists up (Shooters, Maze, Favorites, etc), and then use the "next letter jump/prev letter jump" functions (check the mala config screen to set up which buttons jump by letter in the list).
That, in combination with pageup/down works very nicely for scrolling through long lists.
Without a keyboard dangling off your cab, I'm not sure how you'd enter search terms. Maybe one of those IR mini keyboards?