22 replies to this topic

[adam763]

Hi guys,

 

Initially, my first point here is; if the mods here regard this as advertising, please feel free to remove my company's web address from this topic. Please don't remove the thread as I'd appreciate the feedback from the site's members.

 

Now, onto the matter in hand...

 

If my company (www.kase-eo.co.uk) was to design and build a ready-to-go cabinet for fruit emulation, who would buy one?

 

We've just about covered the market regarding cabinets for emulation software, as well as several other gaming projects, so we thought, why not put our skills into the one emulation scene that seems to have 'lost-out'?

 

Our conceptual design would be to have a dual screen cabinet AND buttons.

 

The top screen would be a touch screen model, allowing any 'extra' buttons to be pressed (Take a Chance, etc). The lower screen would display the reels (as you'd expect) but would probably have the buttons hidden and have 'real' illuminated buttons below it (to give it that 'real-look-and-feel').

 

A coin mech could be fitted to use as your personal 'money-box' but a hopper/money tray would not (as we'd be going into gambling territory as opposed to 'entertainment-machine').

 

So, my questions:

 

1, Would you buy one?

2, If so, how much would you pay for one? (complete machine with new PC, monitors, audio, illuminated buttons etc...)

3, What would you change about our 'conceptual design'?

 

It would be nice to receive as many replies as possible, even if it's "I wouldn't buy one", so we'd know if it's worth the time and money that would have to go into the design process.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Adam.

 

 

 

[No1Stoney]

I think the concept sounds really good. I love the idea of having a 5000-1 fruit machine in my games room where I could load any ROM into and press the buttons as if it was a real machine. I think a lot of layouts would need to re-designed to fit the style of having 2 monitors but I could see how they could work. Looking at your website, and the prices for your current cabinets are, I think (in my opinion) that you will struggle to sell more than just a couple if they were to cost and be priced similarly to the ones you currently stock. I'm not saying for one minute it isn't worth it, but I just wonder if there would be a market for it unless you could seriously reduce the manufacture costs etc.

 

I love the idea though!

[adam763]

I think the concept sounds really good. I love the idea of having a 5000-1 fruit machine in my games room where I could load any ROM into and press the buttons as if it was a real machine. I think a lot of layouts would need to re-designed to fit the style of having 2 monitors but I could see how they could work. Looking at your website, and the prices for your current cabinets are, I think (in my opinion) that you will struggle to sell more than just a couple if they were to cost and be priced similarly to the ones you currently stock. I'm not saying for one minute it isn't worth it, but I just wonder if there would be a market for it unless you could seriously reduce the manufacture costs etc.

 

I love the idea though!

Thanks for your input stoney,

 

The prices would be kept as low as possible, somewhere in the region of our eBOX machines, with additional costs for the extra screen and illuminated buttons.

 

Keep any suggestions/comments coming.

[NickYerPesos]

yeh I had been venturing into the same idea.. not on a business sense but for my own personal use.. I have tge equipment.. just need to design a cab.

[adam763]

yeh I had been venturing into the same idea.. not on a business sense but for my own personal use.. I have tge equipment.. just need to design a cab.

We already have an idea for free-standing and wall-mount versions. Not on paper, just ideas.

If you need any help with your build, contact us via our Contact-us page.

Edited by adam763, 20 March 2014 - 12:40 PM.

[fuzion]

Most fruit machine emulators don't interact correctly with touchscreen monitors unfortunately. I build a media cabinet for this very reason but they just don't act correctly. It would have to be configurable buttons, some machines have a lot of buttons, I'd say at least 10-12 buttons. It's a great idea but with many potential problems.


JJ

[spa]

I thought about converting my slotto to a emu cab when it broke..... but I fixed it.

 

There would be loads of work involved, not just the cab but every layout would need to be remade to suit a different res? I know mfme will stretch but would it stretch that much and still look any good?

[ady]

I think we are very fortunate that the machine manu;s actually allow us to exist...and that is really appreciated, I recall a message I had from Mr Barcrest himself about a layout he was not happy being made, I called him and as we spoke on the phone it was removed,as if i'm honest I couldn't find it and he pointed me towards it as we spoke, we had a good 5 Min personal convo that was really both reassuring and relieving...He respected the fact this site took their opinions/material seriously and we addressed it swiftly.

 

As much as I love the idea in principal, I feel there would be some pretty fast and ground high court writ's in the post should it occur.

 

Adam if you are considering doing it i'd honestly converse with the manufactures first.

 

We are lucky, FME is well ran and a 'click-of-a-button' we can alter on request, you build and sell a single cab and...well that's that!

[adam763]

I think we are very fortunate that the machine manu;s actually allow us to exist...and that is really appreciated, I recall a message I had from Mr Barcrest himself about a layout he was not happy being made, I called him and as we spoke on the phone it was removed,as if i'm honest I couldn't find it and he pointed me towards it as we spoke, we had a good 5 Min personal convo that was really both reassuring and relieving...He respected the fact this site took their opinions/material seriously and we addressed it swiftly.

 

As much as I love the idea in principal, I feel there would be some pretty fast and ground high court writ's in the post should it occur.

 

Adam if you are considering doing it i'd honestly converse with the manufactures first.

 

We are lucky, FME is well ran and a 'click-of-a-button' we can alter on request, you build and sell a single cab and...well that's that!

 

Thanks, sincerely for your message and your concern, ady. I understand where you're coming from 100%.

 

The legality of any emulator-based cabinet manufacturer is always under scrutiny from the legal bods at any organisatation. Most of us here at KASE-EO have been building this type of emulation machine for some years now (myself, 8+ years) so it's definately something we've come across before. (In fact, only this week we've sealed an agreement with a pinball manufacturer to use there ROMs on our soon-to-be-released commercial cabinet) which brings me onto the following point...

 

If we release a cabinet with no ROMs installed, there is nothing (and I mean nothing) that the original manufacturers can do.

It would be like TDK being sued for copyright infringment because people are using thier blank CDs/DVDs for copying CDs, movies and software. TDK know that thier product is being used for this but could never be taken to court, because thier product leave thier manufacturing plant free of any copyrighted material. If the end user uses the equipment for thier own private use, then so be it. The issue would be thrown out of court immediatly.

 

Again, I understand where your coming from and the dispute Mr Barcrest had with websites offering downloadable media, but the issue here is a machine that is free of any material containing patents and/or copyrights. And, if at a later date we were to sell the machines 'fully loaded', we'd of course, seek permission from the original manufacturer.

 

Thanks again for your input and concern.

 

Adam.

[adam763]

Most fruit machine emulators don't interact correctly with touchscreen monitors unfortunately. I build a media cabinet for this very reason but they just don't act correctly. It would have to be configurable buttons, some machines have a lot of buttons, I'd say at least 10-12 buttons. It's a great idea but with many potential problems.
 

 

 

I thought about converting my slotto to a emu cab when it broke..... but I fixed it.

 

There would be loads of work involved, not just the cab but every layout would need to be remade to suit a different res? I know mfme will stretch but would it stretch that much and still look any good?

 

Thanks for the info guys, obviously we'd have to look at several points to see how to work these issues out. Again, we are just checking to see if there's a market for this type of cabinet before we spend too much time, money and effort into a proper design.

 

If the cabinet gets the go ahead, and we'd found a work-around for the issues highlighted, we pass any information on (and probably build a system to rectify any known problems) to the customer.

 

Thanks again.

[spa]

Well the slotto is duel screen. I would have looked into trying to run a different pc in the cab and remake a few dome top games as a test (simple lo techs), but will have to wait until the machine brakes for good.

[fuzion]

I don't think a full on fruit machine emulator cabinet would really be needed to be honest.  Essentially all that would be needed is a fruit machine emulator that has been specifically programmed to accept touch input.  This is the main obstacle...  we don't yet have a fully touchscreen compliant emulator.

 

A really good friend of mine was working on something for me and my Acer 232HL, it's no longer in development, but this was able to be controlled by touch, albeit the software would only recognise one touch at a time unfortunately.

 

 

J

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[adam763]

I don't think a full on fruit machine emulator cabinet would really be needed to be honest.  Essentially all that would be needed is a fruit machine emulator that has been specifically programmed to accept touch input.  This is the main obstacle...  we don't yet have a fully touchscreen compliant emulator.

 

A really good friend of mine was working on something for me and my Acer 232HL, it's no longer in development, but this was able to be controlled by touch, albeit the software would only recognise one touch at a time unfortunately.

Hey, that's pretty good.

 

Well after the comments here, a little more thought has to go into this project than I originally expected.

 

Maybe if instead of two screens, just one large touch screen rotated 90° (mainly used for any extra buttons above the reels) and utilising our original illuminated button idea, allowing for multiple button presses at once?

 

What do you think?

Edited by adam763, 20 March 2014 - 09:16 PM.

[fuzion]

Definitely portrait mode monitor configuration would be easier and would lend itself to full cab machines. Buttons would be essential as there really are no current fruit machine emulators that support touchscreens natively.  I'd certainly like to see a prototype though.  I think people might be interested, depending of course on the final price.   If you have the buttons you wouldn't necessarily need a touchscreen for the fruit machines, but really if someone produced a fully touch enabled fruit machine emulator I think that would be a game changer and would certainly feel authentic. 

 

J

[ritdav]

A cheaper, possibly  better idea would be to make a fruit machine joypad .It would run out of the usb and would sit over the keyboard .with a type of coin mech at the right end and then probably 10 or eleven buttons that would be lit up like a fruit machine buttons and similar shape and feel.I suppose software could be written that would automatically assign the keyboard keys to the buttons or just work with the default which most machines use.It would work with 80-90% of layouts .I imagine people would pay up to £100 for something like this although its very niche and the cost of development may not be covered with sales.

[adam763]

Definitely portrait mode monitor configuration would be easier and would lend itself to full cab machines. Buttons would be essential as there really are no current fruit machine emulators that support touchscreens natively.  I'd certainly like to see a prototype though.  I think people might be interested, depending of course on the final price.   If you have the buttons you wouldn't necessarily need a touchscreen for the fruit machines, but really if someone produced a fully touch enabled fruit machine emulator I think that would be a game changer and would certainly feel authentic. 

 

J

Thanks again Fuzion, this really is helpful.

It seems you are split between buttons and touch screen (if fully supported). The buttons, we felt, would add to the realism (and would make the system much cheaper), however, as some titles have buttons above the reels we thought a touch screen would be beneficial... Decisions, decisions...

 

FYI, we were thinking of using a 40" screen if only one screen was used, it would be over £200 cheaper to use buttons instead of adding a 40" digitizer for touch screen.

[adam763]

A cheaper, possibly  better idea would be to make a fruit machine joypad .It would run out of the usb and would sit over the keyboard .with a type of coin mech at the right end and then probably 10 or eleven buttons that would be lit up like a fruit machine buttons and similar shape and feel.I suppose software could be written that would automatically assign the keyboard keys to the buttons or just work with the default which most machines use.It would work with 80-90% of layouts .I imagine people would pay up to £100 for something like this although its very niche and the cost of development may not be covered with sales.

Hi ritdav, thanks for your input.

A device like this would be very inexpensive to design, however, the parts required (illuminated buttons and keyboard encoder) would cost almost £100 before anything else was put into place (i.e, machined panels, printed vinyl etc...). Regarding the software that would assign the keyboard keys, we already have specially written software that does just that, which we use on our other machines.

A faux coin mech (i.e; a button that resembles a coin slot) would be required to keep the costs down, as a real mech would add £40-£60 to the project.

But, if the price was right for you guys, this is a good idea for a separate development project for anyone interested.

[ritdav]

Hi,

  My question would be say how much at the lower end say a basic model with a cancel button 4 holds and a start button and a faux coin mech / coin shaped button would cost or even just a joypad with buttons in a straight line that flashed.A long way from what i described above but probably way cheaper.

Part of the cost problem is that you can buy a fruit machine off ebay for 100-200 so how much would a person pay for such a thing plus there is no difference in gameplay unlike with mame games which were designed to be played in a cabinet with a certain type of joystick , pressing a button is pressing a button.

I am not sure how much demand would be.

Even just a flashing start button might be of interest with the option of connecting more buttons  at a later date.Probably not much money in it for you though.This doesn't have the global appeal that mame has as fruit machines are very much a uk thing.

.

Maybe even a diy kit could work.

Edited by ritdav, 21 March 2014 - 12:18 AM.

[adam763]

Thanks again Ritdav,

 

An interesting point you made was stating fruit machines as being very much a UK thing - So true. Well, also parts of Europe too. And our market is essentially the UK (& Europe).

 

So essentially, you'd be happy with a kit, comprising of a handful of buttons that flashed, a rectangular box to build and house the buttons in, and the USB encoder to plug into your PC. This would bring the project to the sub £100 mark, but, like you said, without the mass-market (which now seems to be fairly evident) it wouldn't really be worth our while.

 

Any further comments on this anyone?

[fuzion]

You spoke of a screen digitizer, how do these work. Is it basically an invisible keyboard overlay, when touched does it act the same as a keyboard, also can keys be mapped? I guess you'd need some software so you could edit the areas to coincide with the machine buttons. Probably a lot of work as each machine would need its own overlay profile.

JJ