Over on AT:LA I've posted about my friend Gerald's garage conversion into a professional martial arts gym. And although his home gym itself is impressive in itself, with it's myriad of workout options and storage units, what really blew my mind was located in the back of his Los Angeles home garage.
Gerald and I worked together for several years in the video games industry, and to this day despite a career change, he retains a strong passion for gaming. So much so that he had a custom cabinet built in the same style as a Japanese arcade head-to-head setup:
"In Japan, competition games like Street Fighter and Virtua Fighter generally have head-to-head cabinets and I wanted to recreate that feel at home with my own setup," explained Gerald, "Originally I wanted to buy a cabinet like this and stick two lcd monitors inside but after research, I realized it would never work. Titling LCD monitors at such an angle makes it hard to view."
It's just too bad Gerald's home is a bit too large to qualify for our Smallest Coolest Tech Setups Contest, as this corner of his garage is just the tip of the iceberg! But he's agreed to share more of his impressive tech-integrated home in the coming days, so keep an eye out for more.
*All cabinets were custom built by Van Nuys cabinet maker, Vitek Czulak 310.600.1274
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
That rocks. I want to come roll with Gerald for a while and then cool down by playing some Soul Caliber.
view Max's profile
Best. Setup. Ever.
view Eric M's profile
As well as having full media center functionality, the PC is loaded with arcade and home console emulators for every gaming system since the Atari 2600 [note Gerald has skinned Windows XP to look and feel like OS X].
Incorrect. From the screenshot shown, that's a KDE desktop. [Link: http://www.kde.org/ ]
Most likely it's Kubuntu, (A KDE version of Ubuntu) [Link: http://www.kubuntu.org/]
So that's a Linux PC, not Windows XP.
view KoldKay's profile
It looks like an awesome platform. What is the real desktop application used here? Do you know of any for Windows XP?
Thanks
Alex Matthews
LA Magazine
view LA Magazine's profile
As well as having full media center functionality, the PC is loaded with arcade and home console emulators for every gaming system since the Atari 2600 [note Gerald has skinned Windows XP to look and feel like OS X].
Incorrect. From the screenshot shown, that's a KDE desktop. [Link: http://www.kde.org/ ]
Most likely it's Kubuntu, (A KDE version of Ubuntu) [Link: http://www.kubuntu.org/]
So that's a Linux PC, not Windows XP.
KoldKay.. did you ever stop and think that maybe is the PS3 thats running Ubuntu, not the PC? Its NOT a Linux PC as you said; if they say its running XP then they're probably right.
view punch455's profile
"So that's a Linux PC, not Windows XP."
Actually it is windows XP running style XP and Stardocks Object Dock. :)
view l a akira's profile
I think that this system from a technical standpoint is impressive, and had some great attention to detail in choosing of the seats...
To each his own....I understand how proportionately cool gadgets are the smaller they get, but this gaming setup aesthetically is severely lacking.
I agreed with the decision to not tilt the lcd's, but why not still have a head to head cabinet without tilting anything? If your arguement is strictly about size, then I can understand, but if you want to replicate any "true" gaming experience, a rectangular based wooden structure with two lcd's sitting on top of it painted grey is hardly it.
Early gaming was all about the artwork and design of the cabinet, from Space Invaders and Pac-man to Burgertime and Donkey Kong. If you were going to go through the trouble of trying to make a more head to head arcade experience why not design an upright cabinet that is only as wide as the monitors and the control panels, put a lot of effort into keeping it slim, and add some style, curves and artwork to it?
Like I said, I am impressed with the setup, but I am hardly impressed with the look. It looks like it should be in a garage....
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