ALDI Is Selling Street Fighter And Gauntlet Arcade Cabinets This Weekend

5 years ago

October 23, 2018 at 4:45 pm

If you’re after a 1.2m tall free standing arcade cabinet, you can grab one from ALDI this weekend. For real.

Two cabinets will be available for $500 each. The first is all about Street Fighter, with Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter 2 Turbo and Street Fighter 2: Champion Edition. The second is all about classic co-op Midway games, including Defender, Joust, Gauntlet, Rampage.

Based off the description provided from the ALDI catalogue at OzBargain, the cabinets are the flatpack Arcade1Up cabinets. The company announced earlier this year that the cabinets would be coming to EB Games and ALDI this month.

Here’s a shot of the ALDI catalogue:

Image: OzBargain

The cabinets are available from EB Games as well, but you’ll have to pay just under $700 for them. So if you have an ALDI nearby, this could be a smashing Christmas gift.

Here’s a quick spec dump:

• Authentic Joysticks + Buttons
• 17″ (43cm) Color LED Screen
• Plug-n-Play
• No coin slots
• Continuous Play
• Gaming Stool Included

To find out more about the cabinets, head to the Arcade1up site. No listings for the cabinets are on the ALDI site as of yet, but we’ll keep you posted.

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38 responses to “ALDI Is Selling Street Fighter And Gauntlet Arcade Cabinets This Weekend”

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camm

October 23, 2018 at 4:58 pm

It should be noted the cabs are 3/4 rather than full size – good for fitting into spaces, but multiplayer can be a bit… cosy.

Reply
1. thepoetpyronius
  
  October 23, 2018 at 7:20 pm
  
  I noticed the 1.2m thing and felt immediate disappointment. I guess it’s kind of a cool collector’s piece still though.
  
  Reply
  1. grunt
    
    October 25, 2018 at 9:18 am
    
    There are risers out there that bump it up to arcade machine height. Not going to make it any wider, so will still be cosy, but its something. No idea where to get them in Aus (found em on the Arcade1up site) but they’re there.
    
    Or you might make your own, doesnt look much more than a glorified wooden box, and the 30kg weight isnt huge for a box to support.
    
    Reply
justachap

October 23, 2018 at 5:19 pm

Well that’s different o.O

Reply
whitepointer

October 23, 2018 at 5:26 pm

Just beware of these because from many reports around the interwebs the quality of these can be a bit dodgy. The artwork on the control board can rub off, the control hardware itself on some of them is very hit and miss (reports of sticky/stiff buttons and wheels) and reports of the monitors having scratches on the screens out of the box. The cabs also only have 1 speaker for some bizarre reason so are incapable of stereo sound.

Basically these seem cheap for a reason. The physical cabs themselves are good and the games run fine for the most part (some games do have odd issues) but just be aware that these are by no means perfect…arguably even a bit overpriced given you only get a handful of games on each one (and the Street Fighter model basically just gives you 3 different versions of the same game). $499 is a bit easier to stomach than the 700 bucks EB want for it though. It’s cool that the games on them are actually officially licensed and the cabs have 2 player controls, but still seem a bit too expensive to me.

Keep in mind these basically come in flatpacks that you need to assemble yourself but this is apparently really easy and not any more difficult than putting together Ikea furniture.

I also don’t know what the deal is with warranty etc for Australia.

YMMV of course, I have no personal experience with these, I’m just going by reports on the net, which you can easily find for yourself if you Google for Arcade1up issues.

Reply
1. grunt
  
  October 24, 2018 at 9:08 am
  
  I’m kinda split on em, but there are too many things raising questions that I wouldn’t buy one. For starters, $500 for 4 games is steep, even though you seem to get a decent quality controller, and professional looking cabinet.
  
  Secondly, its not exactly big, though 1.2m is bigger than you expect. Its roughly your height sitting at a desk, so while you wouldn’t want to play it standing up, the included stool means it would be fine. You’d just need a couple more for a cosy co-op game of Rampage. There are also risers out there to make them taller (or put it on your own box), so that can be countered.
  
  I’m more likely to get a multi 1000’s in 1 console myself, and pay that premium, just to remove those issues. And have thousands more games on hand 🙂 And probably get a virtual pinball to put next to it for a few hundred pinnies as well. Theres an arcade right there in just 2 machines.
  
  I may be looking to move some time next year (or might not, time will tell) and having an appropriate space for such a thing is part of my considerations…
  
  Reply
  1. whitepointer
    
    October 24, 2018 at 10:13 am
    
    A lot of the appeal of these is their size I guess, 1.2 metres tall isn’t huge and it’s much easier to carry around and find a space for in your home than a full sized cabinet.
    
    The controller is…well the controller is hit and miss if you believe the internet. The joysticks are pretty cheap honestly, they are made of plastic, not metal like Sanwa or Seimitsu sticks, and the ball tip seems to easily screw itself off just with normal use. The buttons are also very cheap with low quality microswitches on them. They seem okay for “casual” use but if you’re a more serious gamer you’ll probably notice issues. All of these parts are interchangeable though – none of them are special proprietary parts or anything like that, so you can swap them out for your own parts if you wanted to. But for 700 bucks, or even the 500 bucks Aldi are currently selling these for, you shouldn’t need to do that. You’d expect better quality.
    
    That’s ignoring the fact that you only get 3 or 4 games on each unit, sometimes even only 2 games, while in comparison the classic mini consoles give you 20-30 games for a fraction of the price. Considering the age of these games and the fact many are legally obtainable through various compilation discs and whatnot (eg Midway Arcade Treasures, Street Fighter Anniversary collection, etc), that’s why I think even the discounted price at Aldi is a bit steep for these things. It’s true that if you wanted an actual full size original arcade cabinet, you’ll be paying well into the 1000’s of dollars depending on which one you wanted, which would only have 1 game on it, so from that point of view these could be considered cheap, but you’d be getting the original circuit board, not an emulation. These are basically toys when it boils down to it.
    
    I also think the Street Fighter machine is a bit of a copout – 3 slightly different versions of Street Fighter II. They could have given us maybe a version of SFII, a version of SF3 and a version of SF Alpha for example, but nope we get SFII, Super SFII and Super SFII Turbo. Kinda lame.
    
    Having said all that, some of their upcoming machines look very interesting (upcoming Final Fight/Ghosts ‘n Goblins/1944/Strider looks pretty good, also rumours of a Mortal Kombat machine and a TMNT/Simpsons/X-Men machine – they’ve also confirmed racing games might be a future possibility), so if they can address some of the criticisms with the product, I might be interested in some of the future models.
    
    Reply
    1. grunt
      
      October 24, 2018 at 12:10 pm
      
      Agree totally. A lot of the comments I saw on controllers though came across as sour grapes. A lot of people had a perfection expectation, and not meeting their lofty standards meant they were a zero when in reality they were fine. Its the extremist nature of society at the moment – one small issue makes it the Worst. Thing. Ever. EVER!!!
      
      I wrote the Street Fighter cabinet off for the reason you state – its 3 copies of the same game. And the limited number of games puts me off pretty much all the other cabinets as well. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be interested down the track.
      
      If you can reuse the controllers and monitor, theres no reason you cant plug them into something else, whether its a JAMMA board or a Raspberry Pi setup, or maybe even a Mini SNES, you can still use the setup as a base for something else. Building a base like this wouldn’t be cheap.
      
      I want to build myself a mini arcade at some point, and will probably just settle on a $2000 machine done for me, and probably a digital pinball machine as well. But I also want some sort of arcade racer setup, which really doesn’t exist that I can see, so might do a project to build one. I expect I’ll be in to it for $1200 to $1500 just for the chair, controllers, and monitor(s).
      
      Reply
    2. jamesh
      
      October 24, 2018 at 3:49 pm
      
      It’s quite possible that the game selection is cost driven. Perhaps licensing three SF2 variants from Capcom is cheaper than three games from different classic SF series.
      
      This is a cost that products like e.g. Pandora’s Box don’t have to deal with because they just pirate all the games.
      
      Reply
      1. whitepointer
        
        October 29, 2018 at 10:38 am
        
        No doubt it’s cost driven, though I compared these to the classic mini consoles, that include 20-30 legitimate games on them (many of which would have needed to be licensed), or one of the many compilation discs for modern consoles. Compared to those products, even $500 for one of these looks like a pretty hard sell, and $700 is borderline ridiculous.
    3. BuyerBeware
      
      October 26, 2018 at 3:08 pm
      
      For anyone considering getting this from ALDI, I’ve noticed that these are actually branded ‘Arcade One Game Systems’ and not the ‘Arcade1UP’ brand that you might be familiar with recently on YouTube.
      ALDI has listed on their website that their Street Fighter 2 cabinets will contain the games Street Fighter ll Champion Edition, Street Fighter ll The New Challengers and Street Fighter ll Turbo (games used in Arcade1UP’s Street Fighter II cabinet) rather than the games that are actually shown on both the box and cabinets of ALDI’s Arcade One Game System: Street Fighter II, Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Final Fight and Strider.
      
      Reply
      1. BuyerBeware
        
        October 26, 2018 at 3:57 pm
        
        Slight correction: The “Arcade One Game System” product name is actually only what appears in both ALDI’s catalogue and on their website, ‘Arcade1Up’ is what is actually shown on the product box itself in their advertising.
        The games shown on both the product box, their catalogue and website pictures, however, are not the games that are currently listed in their product description for the Street Fighter II cabinet on their website.
      2. whitepointer
        
        October 29, 2018 at 10:35 am
        
        Just looks like they got a bit confused. There’s a separate product that includes other Capcom games Final Fight, Ghosts ‘n Goblins, 1944 and Strider: https://www.arcade1up.com/final-fight (which honestly looks half decent, to be fair) but that’s not actually available yet. The ones Aldi has are just the SF2 cabinet (with the 3 different versions of SF2) and the Rampage cabinet (Rampage, Gauntlet, Joust, Defender). These are the same ones EB had (I say “had” because strangely they seem to have removed them from their site) so are probably the only ones officially available in Australia right now.
      3. BuyerBeware
        
        October 29, 2018 at 4:27 pm
        
        “The ones Aldi has are just the SF2 cabinet (with the 3 different versions of SF2)”
        Have you actually confirmed this with them? I say this because although that is currently what is says in their product description found on their website, the actual picture displayed on their website above their description (as well on the front page of their paper catalogue and in their video advertisement) all show a different Street Fighter II cabinet from the one seen on Arcade1UP’s website. It looks like ALDI’s version of the Street Fighter II cabinet has only has first Street Fighter II along with 3 games taken from Arcade1UP’s Final Fight cabinet (Final Fight, Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Strider). The box for ALDI’s Street Fighter II cabinet in their video advertisement also lists these games.
      4. whitepointer
        
        October 29, 2018 at 5:46 pm
        
        Wow what a bad video lol, showed almost nothing about the product. You’re right though, it does indeed show a shot of a SF2 cabinet that has Final Fight, Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Strider on it. I can’t help but wonder whether that’s a misprint or not though because that’s not a product on Arcade1Up’s website.
        
        Here’s the actual listing for it on Aldi’s site: https://www.aldi.com.au/en/special-buys/special-buys-wed-31-october/wednesday-detail-wk44/ps/p/arcade-one-game-system/
        
        The product picture they have there shows the machine with the other games, but they specifically say on that page in the description “3 games in 1: Street Fighter ll Champion Edition, Street Fighter ll The New Challengers and Street Fighter ll Turbo” – so yeah I’d say whatever is in the catalogue is a misprint.
      5. whitepointer
        
        October 29, 2018 at 5:52 pm
        
        Just as an extra, it also shows in that video shots of other cabinets Aldi are not selling, including the Asteroids and Centipede cabinets (Aldi are only selling the SF2 and Rampage cabinets), so yeah I’d take that with a grain of salt if I were you. I guess the only way to be sure is to call them and ask.
      6. BuyerBeware – update
        
        October 31, 2018 at 4:44 pm
        
        I checked it out. The text in ALDI’s product description on their website was the correct one. ALDI’s false advertising in the lead up to their sale was limited only to every image they used to advertise their Street Fighter II cabinet.
      7. BuyerBeware – update
        
        October 26, 2018 at 4:21 pm
        
        They are branded Arcade1UP they’re only called ‘Arcade One Game System’ in their advertising. The games currently listed in the product description for their Street Fighter II cabinet on their website, however, are not the ones that are show on the product itself in their advertising.
      8. whitepointer
        
        October 31, 2018 at 2:29 pm
        
        So in case anyone is still looking at this, I called Aldi customer service and confirmed that the Street Fighter cabinet is the same one you’ve seen elsewhere – that is it includes the 3 Street Fighter II games. The advertising images showing that cabinet with SFII, Final Fight, Strider and Ghosts ‘n Goblins are incorrect. I informed them of the discrepancy so they were aware of the conflicting information so hopefully they’ll fix it.
superdeadlyninjabees

October 23, 2018 at 5:33 pm

Does anybody kn ow what these run on? Like, can I just dump a bunch of ROMs in there or is it some weird, German OS?
I’d steer clear of the Midway one (looks like two buttons, whereas the SF one would surely have to have six), but that SF looks like it belongs in my dojo.

Reply
1. whitepointer
  
  October 23, 2018 at 5:39 pm
  
  These do not have USB ports nor do they have any wifi capabilities so you can’t dump roms onto them even if you wanted to. You’d basically need to modify it yourself to fit a Raspberry Pi or something into it and get it running.
  
  Reply
2. jamesh
  
  October 23, 2018 at 6:52 pm
  
  The website says it is a closed system with no ability to change the games a particular cabinet plays. How true that is will have to wait until people start pulling them apart.
  
  The website says the cabinets draw 36W, which probably means mobile hardware once you subtract the power used by the monitor. So I’d guess either an ARM system on a chip, or one of Intel’s mobile targeted x86 CPUs. It’d be emulators either way, so I suspect they’d probably go ARM based on the price.
  
  Reply
  1. thepoetpyronius
    
    October 23, 2018 at 7:24 pm
    
    There hasn’t been a system built that I couldn’t hack into. Now, to cut the hardwire ti the mainframe… *swings hammer*
    
    Reply
    1. zombiejesus
      
      October 24, 2018 at 8:16 am
      
      One does not simply hack the Gibson.
      
      Reply
  2. poita
    
    October 24, 2018 at 10:07 am
    
    The memory on the unit inside cannot be expanded, and is basically already full. You would have to gut it and fit a pandora or RPi or PC.
    
    For the price it isn’t too bad, the Rampage unit has three sticks and buttons, but it is really cramped.
    
    Reply
    1. jamesh
      
      October 24, 2018 at 1:32 pm
      
      Given that no one seems to have got console access on the device, we don’t know that. They likely used the smallest flash chips they could get away with, but it seems highly unlikely that those chips would be exactly the same size as the operating system, emulator, and ROMs they are shipping.
      
      Reply
3. jamesh
  
  October 23, 2018 at 7:16 pm
  
  And this video claims it is an All Winner A13 SoC:
  
  — a single core ARM Cortex-A8, probably running at 1 GHz. It seems they went to the trouble of sanding off the markings on the chips to obfuscate things, but left them somewhat legible.
  
  He speculates that it is running Linux (seems likely: what else would you run), but he hadn’t worked out how to get serial console access or similar. It looks like most people modding these cabinets have opted to discard the main board and hook a Raspberry Pi up to the controls and monitor instead.
  
  Reply
  1. drsleepless
    
    October 24, 2018 at 11:00 am
    
    I was on my way to posting a ETA Prime video on them. Good spot. Here is his full tutorial on adding the Pi and a controller board. Seems easy enough. He did state that he had to replace the buttons as well. You could get some cheaper Sanwa’s and put them in.
    
    https://youtu.be/DMDlB-gCszA
    
    Reply
    1. jamesh
      
      October 24, 2018 at 3:42 pm
      
      If your aim is to replace the guts, it isn’t at all clear this is worth the money. You’re essentially paying $500 for a cheap 17″ LCD monitor, a speaker, and some painted wood. On top of that, you need to buy an LVDS to HDMI controller board to reuse the display: something you wouldn’t need if you were using a regular display.
      
      It quickly gets to a point where starting from scratch starts to look like a reasonable idea.
      
      Reply
      1. drsleepless
        
        October 26, 2018 at 12:50 pm
        
        Starting from scratch would be a lot better quality and not much more. But I think not everyone would have the tools or such to do it. But it’s always an extra bit of info if anyone wants to go down that path.
4. superdeadlyninjabees
  
  October 23, 2018 at 8:40 pm
  
  Thanks for the replies, guys!
  I think I’ll just keep plugging away at my Raspberry Pi arcade project…
  For another two years on and off when I can be stuffed.
  
  Reply
  1. camm
    
    October 24, 2018 at 12:26 am
    
    Australia has a few cabinet makers as well btw. You’ll pay probably around $1000 all up with a screen and no hardware, but add a Pi and you’re golden.
    
    Reply
    1. drsleepless
      
      October 26, 2018 at 12:51 pm
      
      I think would be better in the long run and last a lot longer.
      
      Reply
James Thornton

October 23, 2018 at 9:59 pm

Dude are you freaking serious?! Street Fighter and Gauntlet Arcade cabinets for under $500 this weekend at ALDI? Dude that’s like $200 off the normal retail price you would normally buy at EB Games. But an arcade cabinet no way dude way too expensive. But what I do want for Christmas this year is more content for Mario Tennis Aces, Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and more new fighters coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate when it comes out on December 7 which I’m going to put on my Christmas list to celebrate Masahiro Sakurai’s final making of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Now that’s something I would like for Christmas instead of an arcade cabinet I would like some more content added for Mario Tennis Aces, Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and more new fighters added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate before the game comes out on December 7.

Reply
grunt

October 24, 2018 at 9:09 am

FYI, its not this weekend. Its next Wednesday, October 31. Theres also a $300 3D printer back up on the same day, so seems a gaming/tech day and probably other techy thingies to keep an eye out for.

Reply
1. BuyerBeware – update
  
  October 26, 2018 at 4:33 pm
  
  Because I don’t know how to edit my last comment:
  They are branded Arcade1UP, they’re only called ‘Arcade One Game System’ in ALDI’s advertising. The games currently listed in ALDI’s product description for their Street Fighter II cabinet on their website, however, are not the ones that are shown on the product itself in ALDI’s advertising.
  
  Reply
lillee

October 24, 2018 at 10:16 pm

Is it just me or are only 2 buttons, how does this work woth Street Fighter??

Reply
1. BuyerBeware
  
  October 26, 2018 at 4:24 pm
  
  There are two cabinets. A Street Fighter II cabinet and a Rampage cabinet.
  
  Reply
2. whitepointer
  
  October 29, 2018 at 10:57 am
  
  Different cabinets have different buttons. The SF cabinet has 6 buttons for each player, the Rampage cabinet which is pictured has 2 buttons for each player.
  
  Reply

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ALDI Is Selling Street Fighter And Gauntlet Arcade Cabinets This Weekend

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