This was a whole journey for this month - But I finished.
Summary: I’m early Gen Z, to which arcades don’t have too much appeal for our generation like Millenials (we’re probably the cutoff) but for the past few years I’ve been really into arcades, I got into them starting with going to Barcade in New York City and fell in love with the NBA Jam, Galaga, Crazy Taxi, Daytona USA, Crystal Castles, MK2, TMNT Cabinets and of course good old Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. Now that I have my own place and i’m also obsessed with interior design I wanted to get a cabinet and mod it! Even if i’m not playing it often, it’s a great conversational piece/accessory to my bachelor pad.
All in all, setup is relatively easy assuming you do research and binge videos of modding. Half the time during assembly I even wasn’t watching tutorial videos because it was so straightforward. Board assembly is easy and the part I had to pay attention mostly for was just setting up the Raspberry Pi and the converter board.
Now instead of just NBA Jam I have 10,000+ games and a nice arcade for whenever I host parties.
Arcade1 Up NBA Jam Cabinet - FREE
Amazon royally fucked up my order and shipped it with no box (just the original box the arcade comes with) and left my package in the lobby room in an apartment building of 18 floors. We have a package room room, so they left it at the front for strangers to come and potentially steal it. I complained to customer service and managed to get a full refund while keeping the arcade.
Showtime Gaming Mod Kit (NBA Jam 2 Player) - $463.92
I used showtime gaming to mod my Arcade. I paid to get a Raspberry Pi 5 included (Batocera and 10,000 +games pre-installed) and the kit came with everything I needed to get the arcade running. I did not pay for controls with them because I wanted a Sanwa with LED buttons. Their customer support is super responsive and awesome and even if I paid slightly more with getting the modding work done with them, I wanted piece of mind and simplicity.
DIY Retro Arcade - $185.73
Got the Encoders, Buttons, Sanwa Sticks, Bat Tops here. Switched the spring to 2lb.