When is enough, enough?

[reptileink]

I know, never, right??

What I mean is this; How many copies of the same game do you have in your arcade?

Let me clarify.

There seems to be two sides to the cabinet builder coin. You either run dedicated cabs/restores, or do multi, and some a little of both. For those who have a dedicated Donkey Kong let's say, do you have Donkey Kong on other cabinets? Do you have one Multi cabinet, and other dedicated cabs, or do you remove those roms from the Multi if you have it dedicated? I see some builds on here (both dedicated and multi) that seem to run the same game on multiple cabs. Nothing I can put my finger on, but how many copies of Super Mario Bros. do you need in one room?

I think it's near impossible for anyone to have every game they want in a dedicated cabinet unless you were filthy rich and had someone building you cabinets every day of the week. But how many of you have a bartop with 100 games, and a stand up with 100 games, and a "game box" tied to the TV with 100 games? I only have the one multi, and that has every system on it that I wanted. I am now planning on a dedicated (or at least a one system) upright or bartop, but that would invariably give me way too many of the same game on two cabinets. I am not really sure I can narrow down my "all time" favorite to just put into one cabinet as I would feel that is kind of a waste to have the potential for multiple games in one cabinet versus just one unless I was doing a repro or restoration.

My thinking is my next arcade would be more of a theme build, like all wrestling games or just a MAME machine, or maybe a multi-Mario or something. I am not sure I am at the point where I could pour hundreds of dollars into a cabinet that just plays Pac-Man for instance(again, unless I was going for a repro or restore)

How do you balance?

[Malenko]

I guess I'm somewhere in the middle.

Almost all my dedicated cabs play multiple games. I have a namco cab that runs Tekken II, Soul Edge, and Soul Calibur. My Faster than Speed runs that game and Maximum Speed, my MKII plays MKII UMK3, and WWF Wrestlemania. My HS5 has a multiCPS2 kit in it, and my NeoGeo.......well its a neogeo. My HS1 is a vert I bought for shooters, I just lack any other PCBs besides Strikers 1945.  The only other cab I have that only plays 1 game is my Cruisn USA, and thats only because I cant find World or Exotica boards at a good price.

Multi-game arcades that dont use emulation

[leapinlew]

I have Galaga on everything because Galaga runs on everything and everyone wants to play a game of Galaga.

Otherwise, my cabinets have game lists which include most games that work with the controls I have available.

[yotsuya]

If I have it dedicated, it comes off the MAME cab. If it's 4 way vertical, it's on my cocktail and not my 8 way horizontal cab.

[leapinlew]

If I have it dedicated, it comes off the MAME cab. If it's 4 way vertical, it's on my cocktail and not my 8 way horizontal cab.

I have a similar setup, but what about those oddball games like Tapper and Zookeeper?

[yotsuya]

If I have it dedicated, it comes off the MAME cab. If it's 4 way vertical, it's on my cocktail and not my 8 way horizontal cab.

I have a similar setup, but what about those oddball games like Tapper and Zookeeper?

Those are on my horizontal cab.

[pbj]

Nobody wants to play Tapper or Zookeeper. 

[vwalbridge]

Nobody wants to play Tapper

agreed.

or Zookeeper.

disagree.

[yotsuya]

Tapper is fun. Don't hate just because you suck at it.

[yotsuya]

Would you use a Monroe joystick for a circle jerk game?

[vwalbridge]

Tapper is fun. Don't hate just because you suck at it.

Exactly. That game is so freakin' hard. I'm sure it will be at ZapCon, so I'd love to see someone play it even moderately well.

[leapinlew]

If I have it dedicated, it comes off the MAME cab. If it's 4 way vertical, it's on my cocktail and not my 8 way horizontal cab.

I have a similar setup, but what about those oddball games like Tapper and Zookeeper?

Those are on my horizontal cab.

You play those with an 8 way? How do they play?

[yotsuya]

If I have it dedicated, it comes off the MAME cab. If it's 4 way vertical, it's on my cocktail and not my 8 way horizontal cab.

I have a similar setup, but what about those oddball games like Tapper and Zookeeper?

Those are on my horizontal cab.

You play those with an 8 way? How do they play?

Fine enough. I have Happ Competitions on my cab, and they're  the ones that spring back to center, so they actually work quite well for Tapper, since a lot of the game is slapping up and down.

[paigeoliver]

I have all of the following multi-machines.
60 in 1
19 in 1.
Jrok Berzerk/Frenzy
Jrok Multiwilliams
Jrok Mylstar (Qbert, Krull, etc)
STV Titan multigame
96 in 1 Multi-Pac
8 Game Space Invaders multigame.
Playchoice 10 with Nes cart adapter and Power Pak.
Mame cabinet
Neo Geo MVS, although I am no longer running a multicart in it.
Big old frankenmame cabinet

I have found that the duplication ultimately doesn't matter much, you will always end up playing it on the best/most correct cabinet. This means that for the most part if it exists on one of the other machines then it never gets played on the Mame cabinet with the exception being the 19 in 1, which is really just a filler board in my test cabinet, given the choice I would generally play those titles on my Mame cabinet.

I haven't bothered with a frontend to my cabinet for years, I manually load games with Mameui or other emulators. I have found this keeps the guests playing a lot more steadily than an active menu system. Of course I also don't need to impress anyone with a menu of 30,000 games, the other 20 arcade games in the room sort of have that covered.

If I were to go back to a frontend not only would I not put any duplicate games on it, I also would't put any vertical games on it or anything else that isn't going to display and control perfectly with my setup.

Hey, just thought of my one exception, sometimes I play Robotron on my big mame cabinet in order to improve my skills before going back to the multiwilliams (27" screen makes it harder).

[DeLuSioNal29]

I play Zookeeper often and it sucks ball with an 8-way comp.  I use a 4-way for that game.

Tapper, you can get away with an 8-way.   Funny thing though, I'm pretty decent at that game, but I play it on MAME using a button to toss the beverages.  When I play the actual machine I find it hard to get used to using an actual Tap instead of the button.

D

[yotsuya]

I play Zookeeper often and it sucks ball with an 8-way comp.  I use a 4-way for that game.

Tapper, you can get away with an 8-way.   Funny thing though, I'm pretty decent at that game, but I play it on MAME using a button to toss the beverages.  When I play the actual machine I find it hard to get used to using an actual Tap instead of the button.

D

I mapped my P2 joystick to be the tap. Plays great.

Oh, and just one ball?

[DeLuSioNal29]

As far as running the same game, I have them in my horizontal MAME machine and on my vertical 60-in-1.  Games like Ms. Pacman are popular with guests and there are times that more than one person wants to play it at the same time.  Looks great on the 60 in 1 and looks awesome on my 27" horizontal which is about the same size as the vertical for that game.  GroovyMAME sizes it perfectly on my horizontal setup and I prefer using it there since I have the dedicated 4-way Ms. Pac joystick.

I must admit though, I almost NEVER play Smash TV or Total Carnage on my MAME cab anymore.  The dedicated one is used for that.  But if I ever decided to sell it (small chance) I would not have to add it to my MAME cab since I never removed it to begin with.

D

[Ian]

Tapper is fun. Don't hate just because you suck at it.

 

Love Tapper!