Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen a full-sized arcade cabinet hacked to control a Nintendo DS. Redditor button-masher decided to cram the handheld into a tiny arcade cabinet instead. Then he went to great lengths to make it look like a real arcade cabinet, adding tiny joysticks and buttons, a marquee and even a couple of coin slots.

The joystick and buttons are wired to the DS’ circuit board. The upper screen of the DS serves as the cabinet’s monitor, while its lower half is crammed inside. Even though the cabinet’s banner bears Galaga’s logo, the cabinet can actually play any DS game. Or at least, any DS game that can be controlled with a joystick and two buttons. But I think button-masher’s good with his cartridges: Namco Museum and Konami Classics Arcade Hits.

There are probably cheaper or easier ways to make a tiny arcade cabinet, but if you have a spare or unused Nintendo DS this is a great way to repurpose the aging handheld. Head to Imgur to see more pictures of button-masher’s mod.

[via Reddit]

It may not be the best arcade cabinet ever, but Redditor mystery_smelly_feet’s arcade cabinet is no slouch either; especially since he made it with his own two hands. Unless of course he has six hands, in which case this sort of thing is to be expected. But I doubt it. If you’re more concerned about the logic behind a NES arcade machine, don’t worry, there’s actually a PC inside.

Mystery_smelly_feet’s gaming PC has a 3.2 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU, 16 GB RAM, a 2GB GeForce GTX 660 GPU and a 2 TB hard drive. He wired the sticks and buttons to an Ipac 2, which he says mimics keyboard input. The monitor is a 32″ Viewsonic DE3201LED. He didn’t say what brand the speakers were, but a Redditor pointed out that they might be one of Logitech’s surround speakers.

Mystery_smelly_feet used MDF to build the cabinet, with the help of the instructions made by Arcade Controls forum member stevenpbhs as his guide. He also said the he ordered the joysticks and most of the buttons from Suzo-Happ. He got the player 1 and player 2 buttons from Paradise Arcade. Finally he based the sweet NES controller graphic on this design by deviantART member BLUEamnesiac.

As you may have guessed by now, mystery_smelly_feet uses emulators to run games from different consoles on his PC. All in all it took him a total of 2 months and close to $2,000 (USD) to finish his one of a kind gaming setup. Good job man! Now go do something about those smelly feet.

[via Reddit via Joystiq]

I’m sure many of you dream of owning an Arkeg – the arcade machine that has a built-in kegerator. The Beercade gaming cabinet made by advertising agency McKinney for Big Boss Brewing is a cruel version of the Arkeg. Its taps only open for the winner of its game, The Last Barfighter.

Sadly, the game doesn’t task players with piloting a ship and overcoming the onslaught of an alien armada. The Last Barfighter is a fighting game that seems to have button-mashable controls, which should help winners extend their streak despite the cumulative effects of their reward.

The pun is great and all, but I can’t help but think that a customizable version that could play other games would sell like crazy.

[via McKinney via DVICE]

A couple of weeks ago we saw a Kickstarter fundraiser for a desktop arcade machine based on the Raspberry Pi. It turns out that hacker and tinkerer Jeroen Domburg has already made a tinier, yet also functional machine based on the same computer.

Wow. So many wonderful features in such a tiny package. I think it’s as small, if not smaller, than the Space Invader cabinet we saw a while back, but this one runs MAME so it can run tons of classic (and not-so-classic) games. It has a transparent cabinet made from laser-cut acrylic, a 2.4″ LCD screen and an itty bitty OLED display up top that displays the logo of the game being played (if available). It runs on a Li-ion battery that can be recharged via USB.

This project is definitely not for beginners, but if you have the skills Domburg has posted a thorough step-by-step on his website.

[via TechCrunch]

Look at this Galaga arcade machine. Wait, that’s no arcade cabinet. That’s a delicious and realistic cake just waiting to enter the bellies of Galaga-loving gaming geeks.

This amazing achievement in arcade mimicry cake was made by Pink Cake Box in Denville, NJ. It has chocolate and vanilla layers with Oreo buttercream in between. This may be a tall tale, but the story goes that it looked so realistic in person that some Bar Mitzvah party attendees actually attempted to play it.

Didn’t they get the hint when the quarters failed to go into the machine? Or when their fingers sank into that sweet fondant icing? I don’t know about you, but I want some Galaga for dessert now.

[via Between the Pages via That’s Nerdalicious]