Well then. I am hoping my order goes through and I have one next week. I will "take one for the team" and give you guys a tour if I receive it.
Random thoughts:
- Size is perfect for kids.
- If you had a few of them you could easily build one long riser/platform against a wall and display them that way.
- If the buttons and joysticks are standard micro switch units, you could easily wire them to a zero-delay encoder or ipac and then connect to a computer or raspberry pi. The only other issue would be getting the signal to the lcd monitor, but I am sure there will be a way to hack that fairly easily. So conceivably, for possibly less than $100 more you may be able to stick a pi in there and have a fully functioning multi-cade.
- If a cheap hack like above is possible I think there could be an aftermarket where folks mod them up and sell them - sorta like you saw with nes and snes mini.
- If for some reason its overly difficult to hack into the lcd monitor that comes with the machine, you could simply pull the whole unit out, and replace with a $5 goodwill 17" lcd. I have two extra 4:3 17" lcds in my basement and see at least a couple every time I visit goodwill just sitting on the shelves collecting dust...so all you would need to do is wire the controls to the pi with a cheap zero delay, and connect pi to the lcd.
- Quite possibly, the build quality and overall gaming experience will suck. Nobody really knows at this point. So lets see. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
- Does the release of these things indicate that the retro-arcade scene has "jumped the shark"?