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Kong a Day #12 - Cabinet Maker


On 02/14/2014 at 12:16 AM by Travis Hawks

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Linked to Article Series: Blog a Day (BaD) 2014

If you were to tell me that owning an arcade cabinet is a bit excessive, I would agree. But, besides the fact that it takes up a ton of room and isn't the most reliable piece of equipment around, there is a lot said about playing an arcade game in an actual arcade cabinet. Donkey Kong is one of the few cabinets that has an interesting history (that we know of). Certainly you've heard about the ship loads of Nintendo's Space Invaders-inspired game, Radar Scope, were in transit from Japan to America and during the journey it became clear that Americans weren't interested. In stepped Miyamoto and Donkey Kong was quickly created to save the day.

Even though Donkey Kong provided just the thing for Nintendo to put in all of those incoming cabinets, sales of Donkey Kong far outpaced that initial shipment. The cool part about all of this is that the cabinet was changed to a light blue color once it was given its own dedicated style. Those original games were all in red cabinets intended for angry humans to fight off alien invaders, and percentage-wise there are many fewer of them around than the blue variety. There are also cocktail and cabaret varieties to fit into bars and smaller locations (which I think are kind of ugly).

                     

Most people probably think of the blue cabinet, and that's what I have. The red ones do look a bit nicer to me, but it's just a preference thing. Playing on a cabinet is so much more satisfying than using any sort of controller, especially when you have a couple of terrible games in a row and it feels really good to slam the joystick around in frustration and know that nothing bad was going to happen.

 

Cabinet images from klov.com.


 

Comments

Super Step Contributing Writer

02/14/2014 at 02:08 AM

I'd love to own a cabinet that had several games in it. 

Travis Hawks Senior Editor

02/14/2014 at 08:29 AM

Some multi-cades are well made and nice and there are a TON of awful ones out there. People bring ones they made to auctions sometimes and they can be unintentionally hilarious. I say that, but I struggled to make a paper craft arcade cabinet, so I have no room to criticize.

Cary Woodham

02/14/2014 at 05:55 AM

Yeah there's nothing like playing an arcade game in a dedicated cabinet.  It just has a feel to it, and that's why I miss old arcades.

Travis Hawks Senior Editor

02/14/2014 at 08:28 AM

Since you live in DFW (somewhere), you should make it over to Tornado Terry's in Keller sometime if you haven't before. It's not as slick as a place like Pinballz in Austin, but is a really good time with classic and new arcade games.

Also, that website is the best of 1997 web design. Bask in its glory.

KnightDriver

02/17/2014 at 12:37 AM

Cabinets are cool. I'd love to own a few and maybe a MAME machine with a ton of installed games. It's just nice playing stand-up machines with it's big buttons and joystick. I wonder why in Japan all the machines are sit-down ones. 

ja

Travis Hawks Senior Editor

02/17/2014 at 09:19 PM

Good question. Probably so people settle in and spend more 100Y?

NSonic79

04/01/2014 at 01:37 PM

I kinda liked the cocktail systems, it let you sit your soda on the screen while I tried ot play the game in question.

I'd liek to own a cabiinet myself but i'd like to install a battery option to save all my top scores.

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