Unique Custom Arcade Cabinet Features Four Displays and Controller Sets
Redditor OgrishGadgeteer designed this very unique four-player arcade cabinet that gives every player their own set of controls and screen.
Four-player arcade games do exist, but they aren’t very common. Some of the reason for that is surely because it isn’t very practical or comfortable to crowd four people around a single screen. However, the situation could be different if there were some way to solve that problem. What if each player had their own screen? That’s exactly what Redditor OgrishGadgeteer achieved with this very unique arcade cabinet.
OgrishGadgeteer’s wife came up with this idea and he has experience with constructing arcade cabinets, so he was able to bring the idea to life. It is a bit like a cocktail table-style arcade cabinet, but each player has their own controllers and their own screen. The four screens all show the exact same content, but their positions and angles give all the players an ideal viewing experience without crowding. It’s perfect for evenings full of competitive gaming and nobody can blame their poor performance on their viewing angle.
The cabinet is a 100% custom design with every single panel cut by hand from plywood. A CNC vinyl cutter helped OgrishGadgeteer dress up the cabinet with a nice finish. The button and joystick layout for each player is pretty standard, so it should work with a wide range of games. And there is even a cup holder for every player. A large circular glass tabletop protects the screens.
Those screens are 20” LCD monitors from Dell, purchased used on Facebook Marketplace. They receive a video signal from a Dell Optiplex 7060 micro PC (used from a thrift store) via a 1:4 VGA distribution amplifier. That only splits the video signal four ways, so every screen shows the exact same thing. For that reason, this works best with games like Bomberman and Trog, where all players share the same playfield. It will work with split-screen games, but that would defeat the purpose.
OgrishGadgeteer designed the cabinet to accommodate the popular controller kits, which connect easily to the PC through USB. That flexibility is great, because it let OgrishGadgeteer give every player position quality Sanwa controls in a unique color. In the dark especially, this looks fantastic.
It doesn’t appear that OgrishGadgeteer has uploaded the design files anywhere, but interested builders could certainly borrow the idea to create their own four-player cabinets.