Arcade Project 08: Sit Down and Fight

Arcade Project 08: Sit Down and Fight

Remember when I talked about these?  In THIS post?  I also talked about not minding the "non-Japanese" construction of the X-Arcade sticks in my Upright MAME Cabinet post, or that the computer in it need not be powerful.  Well that's because I was planning on having another DIY arcade in the room the whole time.  This one is to be modern and versatile compared to the upright, and it is not meant to invoke a nostalgia memory, its made to game with.  So the lench pin of this design is again with our friends at Recroommasters
and it is their sit down pedestal Xtension cabinet for $325

The flat table front to this thing is great, and I will not be using the TV mount, even though you might like it.  I want to be able to push this against the wall when not used, and the TV used for it will be mounted and double as the entertainment room's normal television for watching whatever.  The flat top table will actually accommodate the X-arcade stick from the MAME Upright I already have out, but it will also let people bring their own arcade sticks if they wish to play.

Those are single player X-arcade sticks and they're $78 each.  I know I said the upright arcade's set up can be used on the flat table, but there are several reasons why I will be getting 2 of these.  First, if people are playing the MAME upright, then I don't expect it to be available for use on the Sit Down.  Second, I like to rock 4 player beat'em ups like Turtles in Time or Castle Crashers.  This will allow us to take the Dual-stick and have it on the Sit Down, and then 2 additional players can be using the single sticks off to the side somewhere. ($160 for 2)

When it comes to the television, there is no telling at what point you are looking at this.  Prices change weekly, and you can get some good deals just looking for warranty refurbished televisions.  I think that in the very least you should be able to get a great and wonderfully usable television for $500.  At the time of this writing, I can get a 3 HDMI port, 120hz, 47 inch big brand TV with a full return warranty for just under $500.

My choice to run the inside of this thing is going to be based on using a console.  For me, the console with the best selection of fighting games, new and old, and also a lot of indie beat'em up support is the Playstation 3.  This gives us Street Fighter 4, Blaz Blu, Tekken of all types, and also access to older versions of these games as well.  Why not a PS4?  The game offerings on PSN for the PS4 is not yet as extensive as the PS3 at the point of when this was written.  Our PS3 is clocking in at $270.  My other option was to create a $550 gaming PC, but going over the parts for that is ridiculous because 6 months from now, all my advice would be obsolete.  Our arcade sticks are totally compatible with all console options.

Add in some speakers like in the Upright, and we're approaching $1300 for the Sit Down unit.  You can easily reduce that by skimping on the TV and the extra fight sticks, but we're not doing that.

EDIT:  We need to add something to this.  It is not worth an entire post, but essentially it will be used with this arcade stand, so I'm going to add the Logitech G27 Racing wheel here.  It is the highest rated in a lot of computer magazines and is about $200, which is not that bad compared to what racing wheels in the past used to cost.