Xbox in a Bartop?

[GlennM]

A friend of mine is going to give me an xbox that the DVD drive doesn't work in.  My solution is to attempt to fix it, if not, I'll simply soft mod it by removing my Xbox's dvd drive and modding it, then FTPing everything I need to do.

Now, I think it might be cool to take this Xbox and put it into a bartop, I am going to be making my own blueprints, being a big fan of Gundam, Robotoech, etc.  I am aiming for a sci-fi cockpit feel.  It will mainly be used for 2-player fighters, and beat em ups.  What I plan to do to make two players fit comfortably is have the control panel bent in the center, in a shallow V pattern that way neither player is head on, but close enough to avoid color distortion as I plan to use an LCD if possible.  I am aiming for a 17" screen, possibly 15", but I think the 17" will be a better solution.

For controllers, I plan to hack a pair of xbox controllers for the general interface, but I am also considering making a couple different game layouts, a general one, one for mech style games, which will include two joysticks (modded from some old PC joysticks that are no longer used)  And then a hookup for 4 xbox controllers.  Each control deck will be inter changable by simply lifting the deck up, the decks will rest in a special fitting that has two controller ports standing vertically, when you push the control deck in, you'll basically plug in the controller.

Anyways, let me know if you would consider this feasable or not.  I am trying to get a feel for the possibility before I commit any resources to the project, the most I want to spend is for a few controllers and the wood.  Everything else will have to be salvaged.

And finally the main issue right now is for me to get my wife to give me permission

Later,
Glenn

[northerngames]

unless you plan on usung the buttons and d-pad only you would need 3 joysticks per player and you would loose the analog sensitivity where they would work like a normal joy and be a full  open/close function so all pressure sensitve control would be lost.

[GlennM]

I shouldn't need joysticks for anything.  All I should need are D-Pads and buttons to work.

[northerngames]

it should not be to hard then.

[Goz]

ANother option to hacking pads is the Xarcade BYOA kit (encoder) with an XBox adapter. This allows you to toggle between emulated ANALOG and digital modes for a joystick. Its emulated analog because its an all open or all closed signal and no varying response based on pressure. Works fine