For Xbox Arcade Makers

[Puds]

The other thing I wanted to mention today is to invite anyone who's in the same boat as I am to discuss our thoughts and ideas.  Basically like I stated in my other thread I've got the modded xbox with Mame and other Emulators and I'm very excited to come close to finishing my arcade so I can get the party started.   Heres some things that I've run into that I would suggest if you're just starting out.  For me at least using the modded xbox was a great investment because when I see the PC Mame arcades I see the hardware which they have to devote (sometimes up to a 2 gig machine with at least 512 ram, a hard ass keyboard hack, multiple joystick hacks, or the popular 150$ board that accepts up to like 64 button combinations or whatever.  Not to mention a decent video card with TV out if you want to use a TV, or a really expensive 25 inch CRT)  This all adding up to 1000$ easily.  So because of all that expense I figured i'd go with the Xbox which I could easily pull out if I ever needed to bring to a friend's house for a party (Although the plan is to now have the party at my house )

Onto the ideas
 I'm a college student at Georgia Tech and while at first I figured I wouldnt need a coin door to appease all my friends.  But after I got to thinking, I figured sometimes you lose the adrenaline in a game if you know you can just hit another button to get another credit.  Thus my idea of buying a coin door, and buying 500 tokens from a guy on ebay who sells quarter sized gold coins http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3512&item=6124302206&tc=photo
for really cheap would be fun.  Now once again having 50 tokens in your hands doesnt exactly build up the excitement when you're down to your last life bar in TMNT so I figured I could post a list of ways to gain tokens for use in the arcade.  Being a college student and all, one of our favorite things to do here and especially with the ladies is to drink from time to time Seems to me like it would be some good fun if people would have an incentive to take some shots if they knew it would get them some more button smashing tokens.  Especially for the ladies - you know they want to play "the game with that frog who jumps across the street" and for 1 shot of a lemon drop they would be awarded 4 tokens.  Just an idea.  What do you guys think? I gotta go now but I plan to post more on these great ideas later

-Pat

[nipsmg]

You're talking about a scary downward spiral...


You lose all your tokens, so you take a couple shots, get more tokens.

You're getting tipsy, so your coordination is getting worse, You lose all your tokes, so you take a couple shots, get more tokens.

Now you're drunk, so you lose your tokens much quicker, you take another shot, get more.

You lose them even quicker this time, and the screen's getting blurry, you take another shot, get more.

You're having touble controlling the joystick and you repeatedly miss the buttons and smash your hands onto bare control panel, you take another shot, get more.

You don't even know what a controller IS anymore, you lost your tokens, take another shot, get more.

You now have all the tokens in your hand, but don't know what they're for, where you are, or why all these people are in your house, you finally pass out from alcohol poisoning.

--NipsMG

[Puds]

Yes! everything you mentioned except for the alcohol poisoning part

We all know arcades are addicting but hopefully not to the point of play and die

[wrxh8r]

I decided to build cab after i already had xbox set up and i had a spare 21inch tv  lying about (got projector in room now)
bought xarcade controler but decided that wasnt enough so now im gutting it and building new cp as well as a cabinet to put it on
then somehow i just keep spending more and more money.what if i just ad a coin door i tell myself.then i think well getting some artwork printed would be pretty mint.
now that i think about it i recon that your drinking game is a safer hobby (at least on the wallet) than building a cab.
currently stuck on deciding what i want to do on the audio side of things without blowing to much dough.maybe a car amp 2 speakers and a sub but i wouldnt know how to hook this up to an xbox with volume or if sheilding will be an issue.or save money on stereo and invest it somewher else on cab.ahh now youve got me started
Gotta love putting an xbox in cab though being able to play some newer titles like doa.Ive installed dual hdd in xbox with switch.i can then have games drive with emulators and xbox games or other drive for media.media drive is why i was thinking if i put nice car system in i could use as jukebox as well.

[Puds]

Yea i'd save your money for the cab itself, I thought at one point that it would be cool to have some sort of external audio run by an amp but the TV audio itself suffices quite well.

[reality_storm]

nah go ahead and wire in a car speaker set up, I put an old junker 1000 watt amp and wired all 4 speakers and 2 300 watt subwoofers to it...let me tell you, when the wife is not home, it is a AWESOME playing Tekken Tag Tournament, Dead or Alive 3, SVC Chaos on a system like that...it's definitely worth it...