Taito Arcade Cabinet

[HyruleHero]

I saw an ad somewhere for Taito arcade cabinet? It's $200, seems like a decent deal. It looks like a Taito classics cabinet, with Bubble Bobble and a bunch of others. Is this a good deal,I tried researching it but didn't get much info. Good cabinet , good deal....yay or nay?.

[Bojay1997]

I saw an ad somewhere for Taito arcade cabinet? It's $200, seems like a decent deal. It looks like a Taito classics cabinet, with Bubble Bobble and a bunch of others. Is this a good deal,I tried researching it but didn't get much info. Good cabinet , good deal....yay or nay?.

It's likely an Ultracade as they had a licensing deal with Taito. $200 is not bad considering these were a couple of grand new eight years ago at release. Having said that, it's basically an emulator and a PC inside the cab and the construction isn't as durable as a real Jamma cabinet in most cases.

[tomwaits]

If it's the mini-sized 'Gameroom Classics' Taito cabinet that was sold at BJs/Sears/Target/etc then the cab is undersized and pretty flimsy. But, the PCB is a dedicated Hanaho emulator board that's fully JAMMA, good emulation, and works fine in real cabs. The PCB alone sells for ~$200. It can be configured as a 20-in-1, 10-in-1, or Neo Geo 6-in-1 by swapping the SD card.

[bb_hood]

If it's the mini-sized 'Gameroom Classics' Taito cabinet that was sold at BJs/Sears/Target/etc then the cab is undersized and pretty flimsy. But, the PCB is a dedicated Hanaho emulator board that's fully JAMMA, good emulation, and works fine in real cabs. The PCB alone sells for ~$200. It can be configured as a 20-in-1, 10-in-1, or Neo Geo 6-in-1 by swapping the SD card.

Yeah, Im sure this is what hes thinking of. The Gameroom Classics taito/snk cabinets.
Ive had 2 of these and I would say they really are not that great. 1st of all the are undersized which is the main problem. Playing anything 2 player will suck because you will be right next to 2nd player. The joystick kinda sucks, and on the first unit I bought I had to replace switches in the buttons. Not a big problem, only a few bucks to fix but the buttons are kinda cheap.
The PCB will work on other machines, its JAMMA and you can easily switch between the card with 20 taito games and the 6 snk/neo geo games, but without modification I dont think you can play other pcbs on the Gameroom classics machine. Ive tried and nothing works. So basically you have 20 taito games to choose from and 6 neo geo games if you want to use the arcade unit as it is. Also, the Taito card comes with Arkanoid and Arkanoid 2, and both are pretty much unplayable with the joystick. I love arkanoid and to find this out was a big disappointment.
Also if you are buying the Taito machine, it only comes with 2 buttons for each player. This is enough for the taito games, but some of the neo geo games require 3 or 4 buttons (metal slug 2, king of fighters 96 and samurai showdown).
So if you HAVE to have one of these machines I would look for the Neo Geo version. I would say at around 100-150 its a decent deal because they do look pretty cool but anymore than that is probably not worth it. After awhile they just take up too much space which is why I sold them.

[tomwaits]

The PCB will work on other machines, its JAMMA and you can easily switch between the card with 20 taito games and the 6 snk/neo geo games, but without modification I dont think you can play other pcbs on the Gameroom classics machine. Ive tried and nothing works.

The problem with using other JAMMA PCBs in these machines is the power supply. iirc it only outputs +5V which is all that's required for the Hanaho PCB. No +12V or -5V to match the JAMMA spec. You can mount a standard arcade power supply into the mini-cab version pretty easily but you're still left with the small screen and 2 button limitations like you mentioned.

I have the SNK version of the tabletop unit and it's great sized for my kids. Immediately swapped the SD card to a Taito 20-in-1 and never went back. The kids really like Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, and some of the other early Taito games. The control panel is tight for two adults but fine for small kids.

[StealthLurker]

Yeah, Im sure this is what hes thinking of. The Gameroom Classics taito/snk cabinets.
Ive had 2 of these and I would say they really are not that great. 1st of all the are undersized which is the main problem. Playing anything 2 player will suck because you will be right next to 2nd player. The joystick kinda sucks, and on the first unit I bought I had to replace switches in the buttons. Not a big problem, only a few bucks to fix but the buttons are kinda cheap.
The PCB will work on other machines, its JAMMA and you can easily switch between the card with 20 taito games and the 6 snk/neo geo games, but without modification I dont think you can play other pcbs on the Gameroom classics machine. Ive tried and nothing works. So basically you have 20 taito games to choose from and 6 neo geo games if you want to use the arcade unit as it is. Also, the Taito card comes with Arkanoid and Arkanoid 2, and both are pretty much unplayable with the joystick. I love arkanoid and to find this out was a big disappointment.
Also if you are buying the Taito machine, it only comes with 2 buttons for each player. This is enough for the taito games, but some of the neo geo games require 3 or 4 buttons (metal slug 2, king of fighters 96 and samurai showdown).
So if you HAVE to have one of these machines I would look for the Neo Geo version. I would say at around 100-150 its a decent deal because they do look pretty cool but anymore than that is probably not worth it. After awhile they just take up too much space which is why I sold them.

I still have both of mine (TAITO & SNK) bartops. From what I've seen in the various threads about these on the 'net, you need to drop in another PSU or a larger one in order to drive a standard JAMMA PCB. Most people are interested in popping in a 1-slot NeoGeo MVS in the SNK one. The thing I was more curious about though, but haven't tried yet... is to see if it can power a J-PAC and turn it into a nice little MAME bartop.

What's cool about these bartops vs the more modern ones you see today is that it uses a real CRT screen as opposed to LCDs.

I've swapped the joysticks/buttons on both units and it feels much better now. Yeah it's not really feasible for two players, but a cool toy for one. Having the extra SD card images helps, but if you run MAME on the SNK version it would be fantastic. As far as "cracking" the protection on the SD card images in order to load more ROMs on it, I haven't seen anything pan out.

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