Choosing the right arcade set up

Before jumping in and choosing your set up based on a machine you've seen, or indeed, what you remember from wandering the arcades years ago, we feel it's important to understand the differences between units (upright, cocktail, etc) and set ups (player controls, specs, etc).

Back in the day, late 70s, early 80s, most games were designed to be used by a single player, with 2 player games meaning each player taking their turn, swapping between lives. Early arcade games were very popular in bars and cafes and many of the early games were designed for cocktail tables, where players sat on opposite of the table and the screen would flip for player 2 turn. Pong is often credited as the first arcade video game (it wasn't) and actually allowed 2 players to compete against each other, simutaneously rather than taking alternating turns. The most memorable, alternating 2 player games include Pac-man, Space Invaders and Asteroids and all these games, along with others around the same era, were designed to be incorporated in both cocktail table and tall upright cabinets. The upright cabinets would only have one set of controls (single joystick for example), whilst cocktail tables would have 2 sets of controls on opposing sides and player 2 controls would become active when it was their turn and the screen flipped.

When video game arcades started springing up, it was quickly realised that cocktail tables used up much more floor space and so this was the primary reason this design died out quite quickly in the early 80s and the upright machines, often seen lining walls or backing up to each other in long lines, dominated the halls. For comparison, a 6 meter wall, would only be able to have 4 dual player cocktail tables lined against it, but the same wall would be able to hold at least 8 dual player upright cabinets, increasing to 10 if some of the cabinets were single player. So, as more money can be pumped in to 8 machines than just 4, it doesn't take a genius to work out why cocktail tables disappeared.

As games developed, it became common to have players competing against each (Track and Field for example), or even working as a team together (Bubble Bobble) and the upright cabinets were much more suited for these as players could stand side by side, using the same screen and their own controls. As computer power and graphics took leaps and bounds in the late 80s, we went from fairly basic combat games such as Karate Champ to Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. Whilst all games can generally be enjoyed as a single player, competing against the computer, it's often much more fun competing against friends and so the late 80s and early 90s saw a big boom in dual player machines with combat games and many shoot 'em up games where players would be a team, helping each other, such as R-Type II and 1943

So now you know the history, you should be in a much better position to choose which design and set up you really want. You may at this point think that a full upright 2 player cabinet is the way to go, but our most popular machine is a single player cocktail table. We know this is because the design lends itself to the more retro games, which currently are very popular, but also, floor space is not often an issue. Customers are building bars, games rooms and generally dedicated rooms where a games machine wanted, but a cocktail table also serves as a 'normal' table to sit at with friends whilst having a few drinks and not necessarily playing the games. We oftern work with customers to build their table to fit in a front room and not look out of place with a vase and telephone on it.