While I think those Arcade 1Ups look cool, I just can't bring myself to get one for 2-3 games. What someone should make is a blank cabinet that you can put a small TV in and a one of the retro style machines into. Have unique controls that attach to the system and sit where arcade controls do. Like an NES Advantage was for the NES. Ideally, I want this for the Classic NES. LONG ago in the 80's I remember something like this for the NES. An NES was underneath, the TV above and the controls just plugged into the NES.
Because its supposed to represent an arcade cabinet for arcade enthusiasts. Its a retro repro in minature.
Doesn't mean people wouldn't want to play the NES Classic in an arcade style method. Multiple of the games on the Classic were arcade games and several others feel like they could have been (maybe they were & I don't know they were). Besides the control pad to connect to the game system, they could keep the price down with no other electronics. Just a large cabinet. Buyer has to go by the TV/monitor with an HDMI connector. Include a mount so you can attach the TV to the cabinet. Obviously they can give recommendations on what size TV to buy. Apart from the controller itself, I could probably build something like this myself but its just easier to buy a prefab one (well, you have to assemble it but its all precut and ready to be assembled).
you can make it yourself for a third of the prices those microcenter kits go for. the additional cost factors will be your time watching youtube diy tutorials, labor, and buying your own tools but it will still be far cheaper than either of those kit sets.
If you literally want an Arcade1up that plays NES games then just buy an Arcade1up, mod it to use a Pi with all the tutorials on the internet and then just load the NES games you already paid for onto to it. The actual market for something that does that out of the box is miniscule. There's only a finite number of NES/SNES minis in circulation, they use Wii connections for their controllers which are useless for anything else and it's not something that the nostalgia crowd that those things were for would want to do anyway.
Technically Nintendo had their own arcade cabinets like the PlayChoice-10. But I doubt Nintendo would licence such a thing because it would compete with their own mini retro consoles and the Switch Online NES and SNES games.
You can buy an AtGames Legends Ultimate cab. It's extremely MAME friendly, comes preloaded with 350 games (although you'll admittedly probably only play a fraction of that list for any great length of time) and you can stream Steam and other services on it either for free if you use your own computer or for $1/hour if you use their servers. It's also full sized as opposed to the A1U cabs. If you are looking for a nicely supported multicade that is getting better and better via firmware updates, give it a shot. Costs almost the same as modding a 1up and has better control panel hardware.
The costs of the licensing would kill margins on the project. Plus, there are many other ways of accomplishing the same thing, at either lower cost, or better outcome/output, than what the A1UP machines can do.
There would be licensing. It would not include any games. The only tech would be a controller that could work with the Classic NES. No different then any other 3rd party controller maker.
Well, it could be done, at varying degrees of cost. With a Retropie sort of approach, you could even get decent arcade quality hardware in place of the NES controller, on par or better than the NES Advantage sticks back in the day. I like the old school NES controllers, but that controller design was not the best for certain games.
During the Holidays, Ross had the Street Fighter cabinet for $200. That's still too much for me, though. If it was $100 - $150, I may have bit even though I don't have the space. In the meantime, I have MAME, so I can use that for my nostalgia.
The SF cab could use some internal hardware upgrades, but it's a solid pick up at $200, provided you're OK with the low-rise height of the cabinet, and you don't mind the non-stereo audio. That said the big thing with getting a bank of these A1Up machines is that as nice as the graphics on the marquee look, and as good as you can make the hardware, they still need a ton of floor space.
