Hasta La Gadget!

It’s becoming increasingly cheaper to make your own arcade machine, but if you’d rather leave it to the pros check out Dream Arcades’ latest offering, the Vision 32. The machine gets its name from its 32″ LCD display. It’s loaded with 140 classic games, but as an introductory offer Dream Machines is giving away more games and other freebies to early buyers.

The Vision 32 is based on a Windows XP computer with a 3.0GHz Pentium 4 CPU, 1GB RAM, 80GB hard drive, CD-ROM drive and Ethernet port. Its buttons and 2.25″ trackball are backlit. It also has side pinball buttons and a hidden keyboard shelf. Dream Arcades didn’t specify the resolution of the display, only that it’s high definition.

The list below ticks off some of the games pre-loaded into the Vision 32. Early buyers will also get a over two dozen casino and slots games, seven clone games – including a Donkey Kong clone, a Freeway clone and a Frogger clone – plus a DVD-ROM drive. You can also add your own games, play music and videos and go online on the machine.

Insert a coin in your browser and order the Vision 32 for $2,699 (USD) – $500 off from its regular price. The sale ends on 5/26. You can check out custom made Vision 32 units on Dream Arcades’ Facebook page.

[via Gotham News]

We’ve seen all kinds of game controller plushies, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen one that can actually be used to play video games. Adafruit’s Becky Stern built the soft controller using their Flora Arduino-compatible platform and some conductive thread and fabric.

Even though Becky’s design looks like a squishy, oversize NES controller, your computer will recognize the plushie as a USB keyboard, so you can use it with any keyboard-based game. If you’re handy with stitching, perhaps you can modify Becky’s guide and make a plushie of your favorite controller. It would probably take a long time to build a full keyboard plushie though.

Make a plush browser and head to Adafruit for the full guide and parts list.

Japanese urban art shop Mountain Graphics pays tribute to its country’s honored tradition of shoot ‘em ups with this in your face amalgam. How many games can you identify? I see Twinbee, Star Force, Gradius and Xevious. Are Raiden and DoDonPachi here somewhere?

Mountain Graphics is selling the Star Soldius t-shirt for ¥4,500 (~$44 USD). I’m not sure if the shop ships its items outside Japan, but if it doesn’t you can always use middlemen like White Rabbit Express to get the shirt for you.

[via Attract Mode]

Here’s a worthy weapon to bring to a pillow fight, an officially-licensed Thwomp pillow. If you’re wondering why Nintendo would bother releasing a merchandise for a semi-living obstacle, remember that in some Mario games these dudes are flat out invincible. If they could move Bowser wouldn’t be king.

You can order the Thwomp pillow from ThinkGeek for about $35 (USD) or from Amazon for $25. Or you could always just paint a cinder block and sit on that instead.

Want an retro arcade cabinet, but don’t have a ton of space for one? Look no further than the Minimal T80s, a pint-sized arcade cabinet that you can buy for your desktop.

This weensy little arcade cabinet measures just 15.7″(H) x 7.87″(W) x 7.87″(D). The cabinet is made from durable MDF, melamine and PVC, and has a real 8-way arcade joystick and four buttons. The controls are connected to the tablet via USB, to ensure instantaneous feedback, and the whole thing plugs into a wall outlet.

Games are played on a built-in 7″ Android 4.2 tablet, which is preconfigured with MAME and a custom small-screen front end, and ready to load up your favorite game ROMs. Naturally, since it’s running Android, it can play all kinds of other emulators as well.

So bust out all those rolls of quarters you’ve been saving for the arcade, and head on over to Etsy to order your Minimal T80S arcade cabinet for about $280(USD). The cabinet comes with the standard vinyl decals shown here, but you can order custom ones for around $28 extra.