Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen a handful of tiny arcade machines, but Tiny Arcade Machines is way better. It’s a shop owned by YouTuber dabarduba, an electronics engineer in the UK. He makes compact arcade machines that fit on your desktop or bar counter. They look like arcade cabinets with their lower halves chopped off.

As you can see, dabarduba not only knows his electronics, he’s also got a degree in Appropriately Cheesy Arcade Cabinet Design. His machines come in both 1- and 2-player configuration; they can be loaded with thousands of arcade classics or rigged to play console or PC games. Here’s one of his machines running Street Fighter x Tekken:

You can see more videos of the machines on dabarduba’s YouTube channel. He also makes even tinier – but still functioning – machines, which are perfect for playing just one game, just like a traditional arcade machine.

The arcade machines are not cheap – they cost between £399 to £950 (~$600 to $1,500 USD) – but neither are back surgeries. You can order a unit from the Tiny Arcade Machines website, which also looks like it was made two decades ago. Seriously sir, you would get way more clients if you updated your website.

[via ThisIsWhyI’mBroke]

I guess you could say that most old arcade machines were made from wood, but it was mostly laminated pressboard, covered with shiny vinyl decals. Designer Love Hultén’s latest arcade build offers a much more timeless wooden styling.

The R-Kaid-42 is a complete arcade console built into an elegant handcrafted walnut wood box. Inside, you’ll find a pair of high quality arcade joysticks and buttons, at the bottom of the stack is a compact PC with an SSD drive for emulating games. The joysticks themselves are wireless, and have solid brass handles and ball tops.

To play, simply detach the magnetic sections of the R-Kaid-42, screw in the joystick handles, and connect it to a VGA monitor and power. The system comes with a clean and minimal front-end for a variety of emulators which can play over 20,000 different games. All of this can be operated entirely using the arcade controls.

Best of all, you can actually buy the R-Kaid-42 for yourself over on Etsy. It’s selling for $970(USD), and while that might seem like a lot of money, I think it’s a steal for all of the work that went into this thing.

Look out, MadCatz — Razer’s ready to add an Xbox 360 arcade stick to its peripheral lineup. The $200 Atrox should please serious button mashers, thanks to Sanwa-sourced controls and completely customizable parts. A total of 10 buttons sit alongside the joystick, and you’ll find storage compartments for an additional stick and the bundled 13-foot detachable USB cable under the lid. Fighting game enthusiasts can pre-order the Atrox beginning on May 21st from Razer’s online store, with global availability set for June — Japan’s lucky shores will see it this month. There’s no word on variations for other systems, but that may be the price to pay for the integrated Xbox Live headset jack. Catch a render of its internals and a press release after the break.

Filed under: Gaming

Comments

Source: Razer

After years of thinking about it, I finally bit the bullet and ordered a custom MAME cabinet for my basement. It’s finally coming next week, so I can’t wait to try and beat these guy’s Donkey Kong high scores. Or not. But if I wasn’t getting my own arcade machine, I’d take this arcade cake instead. It’s definitely the next best thing.

This three-tier cake was made by Wedding Cakes by Nicole, and it features colorful images of classic arcade games on each of its sides. It’s got arcade-accurate versions of Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Tetris, Frogger, and even Pong.

It’s even got arcade-style buttons and a coin slot. Though I bet if you tried to mash on those buttons, you’d get food coloring all over your fingertips. The only thing its missing is a couple of paddle controllers for Pong, but I’ll forgive Nicole that.

I wonder if that joystick is edible. I so want it to be a red jawbreaker.

Okay arcade fans, prepare to have your mind blown. This stop-motion animation made from Post-It notes looks like real arcade game footage. It is completely amazing and has me nerding out. All of your favorites are represented. Well, not all, but several classic games are well represented.

It features Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Mega Man, Zelda and more. What you’re about to watch is 5,722 individual still frame images lovingly converted into an animation.

This feat was accomplished by Michael Birkin, who has a lot of free time and an amazing talent. Michael says it took him all of his weekends and holidays for the last 11 months to complete using 4800 Post-its and traditional stop-motion techniques. And while it’s possible it could have been computer animated (due to the barely-changing shadows and reflections), it’s still the coolest thing you will see all day.

And if Michael isn’t an awesome stop-motion animator, he’s an awesome computer animator. Either way, it’s a win.

[via Obvious Winner]