How much is too much for a cabinet?

[1UP]

OK, we've got a few choices for prefabbed cabs now.  Besides the Hanaho offerings, there are also the X-Arcade bookshelf and the SlikStik kit.  The prices range from $999.00 for the X-arcade, to $4999.00 for the top of the line Hanaho ArcadePC.

So how much is too much?  Is a finished cab with complete audio/video/PC/control hardware worth $4999?  Is it worth it to avoid all the time and work involved?  Would you pay even more if the cab had advanced features such as swappable (or even rotating) control panels?  Or is $4999 still too much?  Which is better, finished cab or flat-packed kit?  Do you prefer a cab that comes with built-in monitor and PC, or would you rather choose your own hardware?

[allroy1975]

a friend of mine and I built one for a guy...we made less than minimum wage on it...but it was only our 2nd cab.  Someone who's good at it should be able to make a better one and faster than we did.  We didn't supply the Computer and I think we got about 2000.  I wasn't the guy in charge of the Money..obvously  

Anyway, I can see someone paying 2000 for that many games...more than 2500 though..and I'm kinda wondering what I'm missing.  Does a 5000 dollar cab make you breakfast in the morning?  that's be sweet wouldn't it?  there's a lot of extra space in there.  Put a Coffee pot in the coin door..you'd probably have to set up some kind of Goonies/Pee Wee invention to make breakfast for you in the morning.  But I'm sure you guys can do it...now that I've planted the seed.  lol!

just my opinion ...

Allroy

[Wienerdog]

Good question.  I've thought about this a little and would cap my spending at $2k.  I am in this as much to build the cab as I am to play the cab though.  Whatever amount I can come up with would always give me more enjoyment if I build the cab myself.  Therefore,

They're all too much, I can build it cheaper myself.

However, don't associate me with the people that rip slikstick for the prefab cab they have.  That seems like a good start for someone that is more into playing the cab ASAP.

[1UP]

I wonder how many people actually buy the Arcade PC.  Hanaho says they have a 6-month wait on them, which would seem to indicate that there is no shortage of people willing to pay what they're asking.  Of course, they may be selling more to the Sharper Image crowd (aren't they listed in the SI catalog?)

I might have bought 3 of them if I had the room or the money, rather than doing rotating panels, but I don't have $15k just lying around, and I'm lucky my wife puts up with ONE Mame cab in the living room...  

[Tailgunner]

Generally speaking, all my cabs were prefabricated. They weren't built with MAME in mind though. If I was seriously concidering buying a new one, I'd still be more inclined to buy a new Dynamo cab rather than the prebuilt MAME cabs.

[paigeoliver]

I am all about finding nice factory built cabinets to use. I don't want to knock anyone's offerings, but the original stuff is the best.

Plus, it is SO much cheaper.

Approximate price totals spent on each of my projects (including EVERYTHING).

Artic Mini Mame. $125 (also had a monitor left over, which I gave free to the guy who hooks me up with stuff).

Amazing Mame $172 (total cost was $272, but I got $100 for the original monitor).

Mame Firebird. $10. (everything but the PC speakers was leftovers and freebies, if I had to have actually bought the stuff it still would have been under $100).

Tournament Mame. $80 (should have been $70, but I blew the original monitor, and replaced it with an old 14" PC monitor, which I valued at it's thrift store price of $10). This one also produced some spare parts that may bring in $40 or $50.

Battlezone (Mame). Currently incomplete, but under $100.

[SNAAAKE]

I would pay $2500 for a complete cab with a 27" vga monitor,2ghz pc and everything.
Total cost would be around $1500 and I am willing to pay a $1000 for labor.

Thats just me(would never buy anyway,building is fun).

[Magnet_Eye]

Well, if it's going to be one of those ugly looking MAME MONSTERS people create and try to sell, forget it. If it is a really professional looking cab that looks cool all around and is fully functional, I would think up to $3,000 depending on features, etc.

Especially since we have DELL selling 2.2 Ghz PC's for $399. I mean where's the cost to build a $4999 cab? It's ridiculous.

 

[paigeoliver]

Well, if it's going to be one of those ugly looking MAME MONSTERS people create and try to sell, forget it. If it is a really professional looking cab that looks cool all around and is fully functional, I would think up to $3,000.

Especially since we have DELL selling 2.2 Ghz PC's for $399. I mean wheres the cost to build a $4999 cab? It's ridiculous.

 

Especially since you don't even have to built it at that price. With that sort of price you can just order a brand new cabinet from a distributor, and be done in under an hour. The you just double the total price spent, list it on ebay, and watch as no one buys it.

[eightbit]

Nobody has pointed out that some of these cabs are being sold with legal roms. That adds a lot of cost to the person selling it. With an ultracade not only are the roms legal you can legally put it out and charge people money to play it.

I think the commercial cabs are good. There are a lot of people willing to pay $4k for a single dedicated machine, whats wrong with selling them the same quality machine that will play thousands of games?

The crowd on this message board isn't the target audience for pre-fab cabs. That would be like trying to sell eggs to a chicken farmer. The you don't deserve mame becuase you didn't build a cabinet from scratch attitude is very dissapointing to me. Without these companys we wouldn't have many of the options we now have like ipacs and arcadeVGA cards. Do you think Andy would have been able to spend the money on development if he didn't have the extra sales generated by the slickstick? Act labs wouldn't have been able to create a tv gun if they didn't go mainstream with it. These commercial companys are pouring a lot of money into development. If the rom sets ever go legal it will be because one of these bigger companys poured the money into making it happen.

People act like since mame is free then everybody that does things related to this hobby should do it for free or at cost. Its true there are a lot of people out there that do it for the love of doing it. The problem is your not going to get someone to outlay $30k to develop and produce the first batch of some hot new product. If they can sell it for a profit they will be able to invest some of that profit into developing the next hot new product. If Andy didn't make money at selling the ipac do you think he could have created the optipac or the arcade VGA or the new xbox interface that he's now working on?

There is nothing wrong with charging for plans that you created or charging for a peice of software that you wrote. Look at the negative attitude that star roms has created. People have asked for a legal way to buy roms and now there is one for some of the roms and people are trying to come up with every excuse they can for not paying. Star roms has even given some money back to the community.

Like I said above you aren't going to sell a egg to a chicken farmer but think of all the people that wouldn't get eggs if the chicken farmer decided to close his farm...

[1UP]

Like I said above you aren't going to sell a egg to a chicken farmer but think of all the people that wouldn't get eggs if the chicken farmer decided to close his farm...

Selling eggs to an egg farmer is more like selling arcade cabinets to Hanaho.  Selling to BYOAC'ers is like selling beer to a home brewer.  The egg farmer puts his whole life into what he does as a living, where a home brewer does it as more of a hobby, and will still occasionally hit a bar with his friends.

There are several folks here that own Hanaho, X-Arcade or SlikStik products, even though it's cheaper to make it themselves.  For most of us, this is a hobby, not a living, and those who can afford to make the hobby easier will buy such products.  Oscar (Kelsey) made a good point to me one time: there lots of sites that will tell you how to build a $10 spinner, but he still gets lots of spinner sales.  You could hack a $5 keyboard or get an I-Pac for $40.  Most people end up doing the latter, sometimes even after they've spent the time hacking a keyboard.  It's all a matter of how much you're willing to spend in order to save some time, and maybe end up with a better end result (depending on your building skills.)

[eightbit]

Selling eggs to an egg farmer is more like selling arcade cabinets to Hanaho.  Selling to BYOAC'ers is like selling beer to a home brewer.  The egg farmer puts his whole life into what he does as a living, where a home brewer does it as more of a hobby, and will still occasionally hit a bar with his friends.

Your analogy is way better than mine. Most of the home brewers are occasionally going to buy beer and the home brewer that does isn't any less worthy of being a home brewer than the guy that brews all of his own beer. Thats really what I was getting at. The lack of civility around here when anyone trys to sell something is dissapointing.

[Wade]

You forgot one important choice for that list:

* I already built one myself so buying one isn't a consideration at all

That said, I think about  $2000 would be a nice price point for a pretty well featured cab to make it profitable for the maker and inexpensive enough that a lot of people could buy it.

Wade

[SirPoonga]

I'd say $1000-$2000 without a PC if it is full featured.  That also depends on the size of the monitor.


I'd want to customize my computer.

I think every one is missing one thing what is your idea of "fully featured"  I am thinking of building a cab for my brother for x-mas.  He has no idea how my cab works.  He is wowed when he plays it.  I have tried to explain to him how mame works.  He thinks I and the my cab is almost magic.  I have told him time and time again every one here at BYOAC before me and the mame team did all the hard work.  To get back to the point, a cab for him would not have to be any thing fancy. Maybe 2 joys and three buttons a piece.  My point is I think extra controls like trackballs and spinners add alot to the cost.  Hell my trackball was the highest priced thing on my cab.  Of course mine is still in the proto type stage.  

P.S. http://www.mame.net/mamefaq.html#g01  I printed this out as a sticker and put it on my cp to answer the same old questions.  

[SirPoonga]

A full featured cabinet means having the option to put those common controls on the cabinet.