4 Virtuacade Mame Cabinets for sale!

[zaphod]

Brand new plywood box with new tested monitor and all the hook ups.  

Includes the monitor, huh?  Mmmmm... gets me thinking.

[BLACK KNIGHT]

Hey Zaphod, good to see you're still around.  I was checking out your website recently...I was putting a link to it from mine.  Anyways, looks like your building and selling them?  How's that going?

[Stingray]

All you have to do it put a computer in and drill the CP.

Where's the fun in that?    

Maybe I'm making an invalid assumption here. I enjoy the process of putting the cab together as much (or maybe even more) than actually playing it! I assumed most of the other folks here were of a similar mindset.

-S

[zaphod]

Hey Zaphod, good to see you're still around.  I was checking out your website recently...I was putting a link to it from mine.  Anyways, looks like your building and selling them?  How's that going?

Still make an occasional cab for locals.  I like to keep it as a hobby, but I can also satisfy my urge to build them on someone else's nickel.  The quality and variety of cabinets the members of this board keep producing is astonishing, and I have a list of projects I'd love to begin that they inspired: Natural oak (stained) cabinet, small little bartop, and cockpit cab.  Unless I add on to my house like you did, I'll have to satisfy my addiction by building some of those for others.  The bartop, however, I bet I can find room for.  

[SirPeale]

All you have to do it put a computer in and drill the CP.

Where's the fun in that?    

Maybe I'm making an invalid assumption here. I enjoy the process of putting the cab together as much (or maybe even more) than actually playing it! I assumed most of the other folks here were of a similar mindset.

No, I think you're right.  But someone who didn't want to go thru with the building could do this really easily.

[BLACK KNIGHT]

All you have to do it put a computer in and drill the CP.

Where's the fun in that?    

Maybe I'm making an invalid assumption here. I enjoy the process of putting the cab together as much (or maybe even more) than actually playing it! I assumed most of the other folks here were of a similar mindset.

No, I think you're right.  But someone who didn't want to go thru with the building could do this really easily.

Yeah, there's a co-worker of mine who really doesn't have much interest in building them...he just wants to play them.  He bought some games at the local auctions we've been to.  

[paigeoliver]

Um guys, I actually think Dynamo sells kit cabinets too. Someone should really check the pricing on them. They could likely be ordered and picked up from your local distributor.

http://www.dynamo-ltd.com/dynamo/cabinettemplate.asp?id=3

The prices used to be on the site, but I'm having trouble finding it.  The price for this particular cab was ~$1,700

So if that cabinet monitor, large control panel, Jamma wiring, and all is only $1700, then why are the high dollar cab builders building cabinets, when they could refit these in a couple hours and still make $1000 per unit?

[StLouisRod]

Oh wow! What is with the attack Rod? We have bumped into each other many times, and you have never been anything other than friendly before?

Paige, I realize my reply may have seemed sarcastic, though it wasn't necessarily intended that way.  I felt I was merely stating facts learned from our previous correspondence.  Apparently I misunderstood you, and if so, I apologize.  I will admit that several of the previous less scrupulous posts angered me a bit, and some of that frustration may have come out in my reply to you  .

My point was simply that in order to turn a continual profit in any physical product-based industry, you have to be able to mass produce, mass sell, and mass support.  None of these are possible when your design plan changes every time.  As I'm sure you've discovered  .  But as you said, it's purely a hobby for you, and so for you that's acceptable.
   

Have you researched into what new cabinets cost from Dynamo? It may actually be cheaper for you just to buy them and then drop your parts in. I seem to recall 27" new Dynamo cabinets being around $1200. That would probably be the way you go if you wanted to mass produce and reduce labor times (and not to knock your carpentry skills because I have never seen them in person, but they can build a better cabinet than most people).

Thanks for the info... they appear to be really well built, since they are designed to be placed "in the wild".  I think I'd still need to cut, route, and finish the control panel, secure the PC inside, provide power supply, run the internal wires, etc.  So it may not save me a whole lot of time overall.  But I simply can't tell from the pics on dynamo's site.  And the monitor they provide is CGA, or for extra $$$ an EGA, and for even more $$$ a VGA or SVGA.  I provide a SVGA monitor standard.  

The question then becomes, would the average customer want to pay more for a cabinet with a poorer monitor that can withstand being beaten to death in a mall arcade?  Well, since the machine is going in their finely finished basements next to their pool tables and oak bars, I highly doubt that's a concern.  Their kids and guests simply won't abuse the machine like "mall rats" tend to do (I used to be one of them, so I know  )

Again, thanks for all your feedback, though at his point I somewhat regret having posted here, since do-it-yourselfers generally have no interest in paying for a fully completed product.  But that's understandable, and I was fully aware of that from the beginning.  

[SirPeale]

"poorer" monitor?  I think a lot of people would disagree.

[dommer]

You can goto Walmart and buy a computer desk for $100...

Well the difference with that comparison is that walmart buys from a chinese company that makes a thousand of those desks a day in a factory which employs people who make 3 dollars a day, and gets a cut rate on tools and materials... economies of scale at work.