Australian Upright and Cocktail cabinets for sale [AU]

[elvis]

Hi there all,

After being an arcade gamer and casual collector for some decades, I built my first scratch-built MAME arcade cabinet roughly 2 years ago.  It has brought me much joy.

In the last 2 years I've had many friends and family ask where they can buy something similar.  Most of them were disappointed after I explained it was a one-off.  Also I noticed that in Australia there was only one other place to purchase cabinets from (the very friendly OzStick, who I have no qualms giving credit to for their excellent products and service).  The problem is they are down in Melbourne, and I am up in Brisbane.  And sales to up here cost a fortune in freight and postage.

[EDIT] I originally said OzStick were in Sydney, which was incorrect [/EDIT]

Anyways, after recent talks with the owner of a local computer parts store who himself is quite a serious collector of original arcade equipment, we agreed to try our hand at building cabinets for sale to the Australian public.

We've made sure that we have kept with all current MAME and StarROMs licensing, and have been granted permission to offer their products with the cabinets.

The result is the following:
http://www.gamedude.com.au/arcade/

What's on sale?

We offer 3 default styles of cabinets (all of them can be customised):

1) Upright Retro:

A classic "LAI lowboy" style cabinet.  2-player, 6 buttons per player.  All Happ Competition parts.  It includes a 21" display and Duron 1600 system loaded with MAME and all StarROMs titles.  It runs a GNU/Linux Operating system with the AdvanceMenu fronend interfacing with XMAME.

2) Cocktail Retro:

Again, the LAI Aussie Cocktail style cabinet.  Defaults with a 17" vertical monitor, 3 sets of controls (2 players side-by-side, and a third set of controls mirrored to player-2 on the opposite side of the cab for screen-flip cocktail games.  The same computer hardware and software as the upright are inside this guy, including the StarROMs titles.

3) Nouveau Upright:

The same lowboy design as the Retro Upright, but instead of a computer with MAME these are offered with modern consoles.  Perfect for modern fighter and arcade fans who want to play console conversions at home, but with all the authentic arcade controls.  We can supply consoles new, or build cabinets for customers to insert their own consoles into.  We'll build a cabinet around anything from NES to DreamCast, PC Engine to XBox or PS2 (assuming we can find the controller interfaces).

Currently the colour choices are:

Laminates:  Woodgrain, Black, or White.
T-moulding trim: Chrome, Black or Green.

We can offer Happ Competition sticks (great for fighters) or GroovyGameGear OMNI-sticks (great for shooters).  Special orders for Sanwa parts can also be made if desired.

The cabinets themselves are made locally by a professional cabinet maker.  We build to order, so cabinets can be easily customised if desired.

We were recently asked for a commercial version of our cabinets also from a nightclub owner.  This was no problem, as we simply replaced our cocktail cabinet internals with a real gameboard, and added a coinmech and locking mechanisms.

So I hope we can bring cabinet ownership to the Australian public who might be a little shy of a circular saw or soldering iron.  I know both the commercial arcade and home gaming industries have brought me much joy over the years, and it's a great thing to contribute back to that in a small way.

We have both an upright and a cocktail on demo in store, so if you're a local, swing by, say hello and have a play.  Tell 'em Elvis sent you.

[Bones]

It's great to see this stuff gaining momentum in Australia. I wish you every success.

[elvis]

It's great to see this stuff gaining momentum in Australia. I wish you every success.

Thanks for the kind words.

Initially we met much resistance from the arcade collectors and repairers, but I hope we've now proved our intentions to them with the legal ROM licensing.

For me this is a hobby first and foremost, and a job second.  I'm hoping this brings more classic gaming into suburban Brisbane homes for both the generation past who loved it so much, and the generation now who are missing out on what I consider *REAL* gameplay.

[aumameman]

I wish you the best of luck with this project too! ozstick are actually down in Melbourne not in Sydney.

[Q*Bert_OP]

  oooh! I'd rather not ship one to the US though

[elvis]

I wish you the best of luck with this project too! ozstick are actually down in Melbourne not in Sydney.

Thanks.  And yes, you're right.  For some reason I keep thinking they're in Sydney but they're not.  Postage from Melbourne to Brisbane is even worse!

oooh! I'd rather not ship one to the US though

I am sorry to say it, but we cannot offer shipping to the US.  The cost alone would be absolutely huge, considering what it's costing us already to try and ship these things locally.

So for the time being this will be AU only.

[cdbrown]

When I saw the link in your sig I thought I must be reading the link incorrectly.

I have bought a lot of components from Gamedude over the last couple of years.  In fact the pc to go in the cab is 90% from there.  It's crazy being able to get all these components shipped to perth and still be cheaper than the local suppliers.

Best of luck

[DannyH]

good luck to you, its awesome to see it gaining some momentum.

Have a chat with john from arcade-80s he is up in brisbane and a top bloke. He can help you out.

Another business like this is starting up in Sydney last I heard as well

[Adeptus]

Looking at the abundance of used cabs on these forums... WTF would you even consider shipping one from Australia???
If I could pick up one of these bargain used US cabs I would...

I'm in Adelaide, so shipping from Brisbane still isn't going to be cheap. I'm sure my wife wouldn't let it in the house anyway

I'm starting to convert a couple of dual joysticks, one to PSX (& then via convertor to whatever else), the other I'm building a PC inside it

[elvis]

Hey yeah, I'm always up for controller boards for the console-based cabs.

As for shipping: I'm struggling to find someone who's cheap yet reliable.  So far we use pack'n'send who are absolutely brilliant in terms of getting cabs from A to B with zero damage.  But moving these around the country is expensive.  Most couriers baulk at anything over 20KGs, and these are closer to 80 when fully built!

As such, the abundance of our orders have come from Brisbane, with a few stretching out to Toowoomba and Rockhampton.  Nothing inter-state yet.  Melbourne and Sydney have a few cab builders already, so I don't expect huge sales from down their way.

[Adeptus]

Are removalists an option?
Don't know how they compare in terms of price (and reliability... you hear about some dodgy ones...)

[elvis]

Yeah, I've been looking at removalists as a more realistic option.  As you say, finding a non-dodgey one is the trick (which you can've verify until *AFTER* a few jobs).

I think that's the way I'm going to have to deliver these things.