*sigh* You are paying $300 for "just a shell" that has nice artwork on it.... artwork that would cost the price of said shell if you were to build it yourself. Full-length sideart is prohibitively expensive..... I don't understand why some of the old timers around here don't get that.
I bought the entire open ice art package for like $160 shipped and it included a backlit translight, 2 pieces of full side art (slightly over sized to ensure it fit), and a poly carb coated CPO. Midway cabs are significantly larger than these 1up cabs. Even got 2 copies of the monitor bezel instruction card ; and this wasn't from Ken either, so I didn't get a friend discount. I could probably get cheap Chinese prints for like $50 shipped.
I think "the same as converting any other existing cab" is a bit closer to my reasoning so lets examine this. I have converted a few cabs. The bargain $100 cabs are usually roached and require, at a minimum, some wood repair, repainting, and some sort of art replacement (marquee, cpo, side art, or some combination of the three). So you are probably at or above $300 once you have that bargain cab ready for controls, monitor, computer. You also have some time commitment to do all this work. On the other hand, I can order one of these cabs, spend 20 minutes screwing it together, and get right to the mods. Again, it all depends on how I feel about it once I get my hands on one. But if I like the arcade1up machine, its going to be a no brainer for me to use one of these as a starting platform vs. dealing with sourcing, picking up, cleaning, and refurbishing a donor cab.
The problem with examples like this is its more often than not based on worst case scenario. There's no point in picking up a $100 "donor cab" and dumping $200 into it if you can get a fresh one CNC'ed for half the price. At most I've spent maybe $50 fixing up a busted cab, scrap wood, bondo, and paint isn't that expensive. But lets use these 1up cabs as a base. Let's say I spend $300 on the cab, I still have to replace the knock off sanwa controls, tiny LCD, and if I want to play more than 3 games, the guts. After I do all that Im still stuck with a cab that has a bad formfactor even with a booster seat, and a marquee that doesn't light up.
I'm not saying these aren't great for a 9 year old that only wants to play 3 or 4 games; I'm saying its a minimal effort release with real world short comings that are consistently dismissed because , well, I don't know why, but everyone does it.
Your argument is still based on me being a builder. Nothing Ive said has nothing to do with my building a better one cheaper.
Lew, I dont know anyone who dislikes the concept, just the execution. $300 price point for a cab that size is easily achievable using the same cheap materials. An eBay special Pandora controlpanel is $110 shipped so all you need is a monitor and some 1/2" melamine chip board and youre done. These better take closer to 15 minutes to put together, and there are a myriad of options to power a cab that wont get corrupted by a power cycle or limit you to 4 games. I hope Im not coming off as cranky, Im just being a realist. I love the idea but they just seem to be made as cheap and fast as possible, right down to the lack of scaling on the side art. Just a little refinement and these things could have been awesome. Hell make a bigger one for $50 more and call it the 1UpXL /shrug.