Cheap Solution to play arcade games

[strangenova]

I'm looking for an affordable way to play neo geo and cps games on my tv. I don't collect arcade hardware, too expensive and space consuming for me, but I'd really like to play some classic arcade games on my hd tv. Any suggestions?

[nightrnr]

A modded oXbox with finalburn (legends?) is the best I've run into so far. If all you care about is Neo Geo and CPS1/2, you could likely even fit all/most of that on the stock hard drive.

Or a pc with finalburn or mame, of course. Pair it with a video card with the appropriate output you need (many have HDMI now) and a USB controller and you are set.

[strangenova]

What's the cost and ease of use of the Modded xbox vs something like a raspberry pi?

[Tanooki]

Id go with a raspberry pi kit. They have entire kits with the board, parts, memory card, power plug, other needed cables, even a shell for it included for not much money. Just need to supply your own usb or bluetooth controller. Its all static and easy to setup, less space and less parts to fail than an aging xbox.

Another choice if you already have an existing android device would be to see if any port on it has a video out option built on it. Then just buy that port to HDMI cable and youre done.

[CRTGAMER]

I'd really like to play some classic arcade games on my HD TV. Any suggestions?

If you already own a PC Laptop, hook it up to you HD TV. The PC has the largest selection of Arcade games thru Mame.

If a console, concur with earlier suggestion of the original Xbox setup with a larger hard drive. A great selection of Arcade games conveniently fast loaded off that internal hard drive.

[strangenova]

I don't have a laptop to use for emulation unfortunately. Plus I would really like a dedicated box to plug in and play arcade games.

[Tanooki]

Try this:
https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberr ... B01C6Q2GSY

$$75 shipped

CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit - 32 GB Edition

--Includes Made in UK Raspberry Pi 3 (RPi3) Model B Quad-Core 1.2 GHz 1 GB RAM
--On-board WiFi and Bluetooth Connectivity
--32 GB Micro SD Card (Class 10) - Raspberry Pi Recommended Micro SD Card pre-loaded with NOOBS, USB MicroSD Card Reader
--CanaKit 2.5A USB Power Supply with Micro USB Cable and Noise Filter - Specially designed for the Raspberry Pi 3 (UL Listed)
--High Quality Raspberry Pi 3 Case, Premium Quality HDMI Cable, 2 x Heat Sinks, GPIO Quick Reference Card, CanaKit Full Color Quick-Start Guide

Had this recommended to me quite a bit, total kit, no effort required other than throwing your files on the card and going for it.

[nightrnr]

Yeah, pi is a good option. As Tanooki stated, there is less to wear out, as opposed to older systems and PC's.
I totally want to do what another member did recently and put one in a Playstation housing.

But personally, I enjoy repurposing older electronics, so making an Xbox or obsolete pc into a retro arcade appeals to me more.

[strangenova]

Yeah, pi is a good option. As Tanooki stated, there is less to wear out, as opposed to older systems and PC's.
I totally want to do what another member did recently and put one in a Playstation housing.

But personally, I enjoy repurposing older electronics, so making an Xbox or obsolete pc into a retro arcade appeals to me more.

I can understand that definitely, but in my position I'd have to buy a raspberry pi, oxbox or an old pc for this anyways. Also I have usb controllers and one usb joystick so the Xbox would need further modding for me to use the controllers I already have lying around.

The pi seems to be an easy setup from that link that Tanooki shared. I'm gonna look into getting that canakit.

[Tanooki]

It's supposedly VERY easy to set up if you know how to basically stuff things onto an Android device more or less as far as complexity goes.

I was seriously considering buying one of these before the pi3 came out and just waffled on it as other stuff came up including my jumping into the Neo-Geo MVS stuff too. I was not wanting to deal with a wall of complicated and annoying garbage, nor did I want to try and make a housing for a little pi board either. I found that on amazon (pi2 ver) and asked on a few sites with techie type people and did some other digging and this kept popping up as the best option if you don't want to manually built it yourself as all the parts are there, already made, and it's just ready to go.

As I see it you can blow $75 on that, or how much on a single NES, SNES, TG16, TGCD, SegaCD, Saturn, etc game these days where all the sharks have turned the waters red.

Simply put $1100-1200+ Little Samson Cart vs $75 for kit, Little Samson ROM, 10000 more games. No brainer.