I just prefer my gaming to be more portable, so I can just move around TVs and consoles and do day long gaming events.
Agreed. One of my other interests (which I mentioned above), is home theater, but I don't have the room for a large set up. So I made a temporary one that is based on a computer and a video projector. The video projector is a portable unit already, but the computer is a standard Compaq desktop computer (I sit the projector on top of it). The big issue with the computer isn't its size, but the necessity to hook up the darn keyboard. So that is a rather cumbersome extra piece to tag along with me. An Xbox with XBMC would eliminate that problem, have everything on one small controller (or even the remote control) and it is much smaller and lighter. So right there I see another use for the Xbox besides a Mame engine source.
The Xbox1 still gets use, though less and less, as it does have a lot of great arcade ports and such. It's a useful machine. Though I'd love to build a driving cockpit for arcade driving games someday. 
I was going to stick with the arcade ports, but for what? If I can run Mame, then I would be good to go with the arcade originals. But I know there are the limitations with the analog, but Ark_ader says the new version of CoinOPs gets around that problem. So I am going to look into that.
I am not much into the newer driving games, but being that I am a fan of the old Outrun, I do admit that Outrun 2 did raise an eyebrow. If I had room, I would build a dedicated driving/cockpit type cabinet for those games as well. But the primary purpose for such a cabinet would be mainly to run with a set of "Star Wars" controls. But panel swaps would be mandatory on a large cabinet like that. Another thing I always wanted to do was create a set of controls for the "Pod Racer" Star Wars game. That is another 'newer' game I like. The arcade version was great because you controlled the racer from two throttle controls...one for each hand. Awesome!
I totally agree with this and yet every time I decide on a design I thik up something better and it never gets done.
Lol! THAT sounds familiar!
9 out of 10 times I play on the PC or Consoles I'm sitting down, so a cockpit would seem to be a better idea, and I would love to ditch the desk.
Same here, I prefer sitting, but I am fine with stools. Right now I don't have the room for a 'driver' anyway.
Now if I could just get plans on a Star Trek Cockpit and add three LCD screens..... 
Oooo, hope you got room for that one. I saw a similar cockpit design like that for a flight simulator. The thing was huge.
I'd think a cockpit style would be NECESSARY. I've seen standup versions of NAOMI driving cabs and my only thought was 'Standing up to drive does not look fun!'
Yeah, that IS kind of awkward, but remember that those driving games were made for arcades and if they could fit all the controls in a cabinet that didn't have a larger footprint than a standard arcade cabinet, then that would appeal more to operators. Also stand ups are cheaper than sit downs too, so cost comes into play.
Over the years the "cockpit" cabinets have become smaller as some cabinets seem like nothing more than a slightly lower full size arcade cabinet with a chair that sticks out a little bit that sits on a track (to adjust it). Controls are usually in the same places as on the stand up cabinet.
I don't have enough interest in a driving games to warrant a full sit down cabinet, but if I DID have the room, I would consider a sit down cabinet of some kind because I know that I have other simulation games that could take advantage of a cockpit design.
But all in all with a full size sit down cabinet, I probably would use a PC as the engine. With all the analog controls and I/O to deal with, I think a PC is still the way to go.
BUT for simple button/joystick cocktail or counter top cabinets, then yeah the Xbox does seem very appealing to me.
I think if I build a driving cab (and I would LOVE to) I would be single as well....as it is my wife isn't a fan, but so far it doesn't encroach on her living space.
I am going to have to dig into Coin Ops more...as it is fairly unsupported it's hard ot find "Installation for dummies" which I need.
I hear you there. When finding info, I am just led to and fro and many times I end up finding dead links. As for cabinets...well, I have a wife AND kids now and unless I get a place that has a tremendous amount of space, I DON'T foresee any kind of cockpit cabinet soon. However, I DID think of a way to install a cabinet in a typical wall closet space and that could be made into a "general" sit down type cabinet.
Another Idea I have is a 'flat cab' in which the use of a flatscreen TV would allow a standup arcade cabinet that was less than half the depth of a full size game. I know this has been done before here on BYOAC and it is a good concept. It I have a location on a 'dead wall', I could line up two or three such cabinets and they would take up a very small foot print.
The countertop is thusfar the most space saving way to go for me because as of now I need something very portable.
I didn't end up ordering the Mod chip as my soft mod worked. I have a HD to use with my XBOX1 build, once again I just need to follow a "upgrading the harddrive for dummies" path. Then of course I need to understand all the other mods. Amazing what people can do, I just don't have the bandwidth to learn it all!
Ahhh, so you are sticking with the soft mod. Well, I can't evaluate the hard mod as of yet because I am still stuck at the 'Flash Point'. I was getting some advice from Crash...but he is in the middle of a move right now and I have not heard from him in a few days. I think based on his initial advice, I am going to attempt a flash this week on my own. So I am going to cross my fingers that it works.
I would say that when it comes to a hard drive change it is hard to beat the chip. If you don't need to lock the hard drive, it is one of the easier things to do. Since I ordered two mod chips, I am going to buy another Xbox and make that one an XBMC machine. That one is going to play movies, so I need to upgrade the HD, but I am not going to bother locking it either as that one will probably never be used for games. We will see though, I have to first get this one going here.
XboxHDM I believe is the tool you need for formatting and locking a HDD with a key that'd match the Xbox's BIOS. Though I havn't used that since late 2007. D:
That never came up before, but supposedly an installer disk such as AID or Slayer's SHOULD be able to do that, right?
Thanx,
Geo