BlahCade 211: 105 Reasons Why

Zaccaria Pinball is coming to AtGames.

There’s more good news for AtGames fans in the form of Zaccaria pinball games being available natively on the cabinet from mid-2021. We explore this news and ask which cabinet would you buy if you had to choose?

Based on some discussion in community forums, we decide to peek into the world of software licensing again and see if it is actually legal to offer access to Visual Pinball X (VPX as it is known in the community) on commercial products. The results may surprise you.

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Show notes

02:45 — Black Friday TVs and Arcade 1UP screens

It’s interesting to hear how flat-panel TVs are made, and this flows into the screen sizes we’re seeing on some commercial home arcade systems.

It turns out that the screens we’re seeing in cabinets today may be years old in storage, just waiting for a bulk buy.

10:30 — Arcade 1UP hits Australia

A big container load of A1UP gear has landed in Australia but it isn’t pinball.

The Pac-Man cabinet didn’t come with much notice for the folks at Costco North Lakes.

I was able to help out wide-eyed folks work out what they could (and couldn’t) do with it.

I originally predicted that the pinball machines in Australia would be about A$800. I think they are going to be more like A$1200 down in Australia.

21:34 — AtGames Legends Pinball gets Zaccaria (in mid-2021)

AtGames released official news that Magic Pixel has partnered with AtGames to offer local Zaccaria tables on the ALP.

There’s going to be over 100 tables in addition to the Farsight Gottlieb tables.

37:00 — VPX and Legends Pinball

How can you play Visual Pinball X (VPX) on your AtGames cabinet? The answer is streaming them from ArcadeNet.

But don’t get too excited: you can only play the VPX tables that AtGames offers through their own servers.

There has been some debate about the legalities of running VPX on commercial machines like AtGames. I decided to delve into the software licenses and found a precedent that may suggest there is nothing to worry about.

There is probably a justified reason why the VPX community would be a bit nervous about this agreement. The more attention that is given to open source pseudo-legal platforms like MAME and VPX, the more chance that the pseudo-legal aspects become cease and desist aspects.

49:00 — Which cabinet would you choose

If it comes down to the crunch, which cabinet would you choose?

I’m leaning into AtGames but Chris is leaning into Arcade 1Up. There are always two sides to the story so we try to offer a balanced view about why each cabinet might be suitable for you.

63:00 — Our plea to marketing departments

Don’t forget the hardcore pinball players who want to know specific facts.

If you don’t supply us enough facts up-front, we draw our own conclusions. That isn’t good for your product sales or your business.

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