Jason Miller

I have spent the last three years rebuilding my arcade collection from scratch, and one truth keeps showing up: finding authentic CPS2 and Neo Geo cartridge options for collectors is harder than any other corner of retro gaming. Bootlegs flood the secondary market, original SNK AES cartridges sell for thousands, and even Capcom B-boards now … Read more

I have spent the better part of two years chasing the perfect way to play Neo Geo games at home, and after testing six MVS-based machines on my own CRT and modern TV, I finally understand why the best Neo Geo MVS Consolized Systems cause so much discussion on r/neogeo. MVS stands for Multi Video … Read more

If you’ve ever cranked up a Street Fighter cabinet under fluorescent lights and watched the screen turn into a mirror, you already know why anti glare films for arcade monitors matter. After restoring three cabinets in my garage last year, I went through every major film on the market and found eight that actually hold … Read more

I still remember the first time I swapped a bat top onto my old Street Fighter machine. The difference felt immediate: my thumb was no longer fighting a slippery ball, and quarter-circles snapped into place the way they did in the arcade. That was the day I started taking joystick handles seriously, and it is … Read more

If your quarter circles keep coming out as forward jumps, or your dragon punch keeps turning into a forward kick, the problem almost never sits in your hands. It sits in the gate. I have been building fight sticks for over a decade, and I order every new batch of joystick restrictor gates for arcade … Read more

A microswitch is the small electrical component inside every arcade button and joystick that registers a press and sends the signal to your controller. It’s the part you actually feel every time you tap a button mid-combo, and it’s the single biggest determinant of how your fightstick or arcade cabinet plays. We spent the last … Read more

I still remember the first time I stripped a screw hole on my arcade control panel mid-build. The joystick wobbled for months before I finally learned what a proper mounting plate could do. That frustration pushed me to dig deep into control panel mounting plates this year, and our team spent the last 90 days … Read more

When I finished restoring my first cabinet, the machine still looked half-done. The marquee was bright, the side art was clean, and the control panel popped, but the little metal plates that once identified the machine were long gone. That is the moment I went down the rabbit hole of finding the best arcade machine … Read more

A free play kit for a coin operated cabinet is the hardware that lets a game start without coins — either a credit button that fires the same signal a coin mech sends, a coin door replacement wired for unlimited credits, or an encoder that maps a coin slot to a keyboard or joystick input. … Read more

Nothing breaks the illusion of a restored arcade cabinet faster than a coin door that fights back. The coin return button sticks halfway in, the reject lever has lost its click, and the scratched slot plate eats quarters instead of passing them through. I have restored enough cabinets and virtual pinball builds at this point … Read more