# 19" Pandora's Box 9D Tabletop Arcade for $299 - Any Good?!?!

**Source:** RetroRalph  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2020-12-18  
**Duration:** 13m 14s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz4QmhK4sJc

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## Analysis

RetroRalph reviews a 19-inch Pandora's Box 9D tabletop arcade ($299), highlighting its novelty 19-inch LCD display and coin-operator functionality with included tokens, but criticizing the outdated 9D board for poor emulation quality, screen tearing, lack of save states/scan lines, and inability to add games. Wicked Gamer and Collector provides technical analysis confirming the 9D is based on the older Pandora's Box 5, positioning it as the weakest board option; Ralph recommends buyers seek models with the Pandora's Box 3D board instead.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] The Pandora's Box 9D is based on the Pandora's Box 5 motherboard, which is an older architecture — _Wicked Gamer and Collector technical analysis: 'the 90 is just more like a beefcake number Five' and Ralph confirms 'the 9D is based on the Pandora's Box 5, which is an older Pandora's Box board'_
- [HIGH] The 9D cannot have games added to it and lacks save states and scan lines — _Ralph explicitly states: 'you can't add games to it. There's no save states. There's no scan lines.'_
- [HIGH] The 9D suffers from significant emulation issues including screen tearing — _Wicked: 'still has a lot of problems with domain emulation and screen tearing'; Ralph: 'plagued with a lot of emulation issues there's screen tearing'_
- [HIGH] The machine comes with 2,500 games pre-loaded — _Ralph states: 'it's actually 2,500 games'_
- [MEDIUM] A Pandora's Box 3D board can physically be swapped into the 9D cabinet with minor modifications — _Ralph demonstrates: 'The Pandora's Box 3D will work 100% in here. All the cabling, the power switch, everything will work' but notes cosmetic gaps and mounting challenges_

### Notable Quotes

> "the 9D is probably my least favorite Pandora's Box"
> — **RetroRalph**, approximately 13:20
> _Direct negative assessment of the specific board used in this product; frames it as suboptimal choice for this form factor_

> "the Pandora's Box 9D is not the best board but also not the most horrible board you can get"
> — **Wicked Gamer and Collector**, approximately 4:30
> _Balanced technical assessment placing it in middle of spectrum, but with caveats about being derivative of older architecture_

> "China doesn't care about that they don't care. They never care."
> — **RetroRalph**, approximately 2:00
> _Commentary on unlicensed IP use (Mickey Mouse-style tokens) in Pandora's Box products; establishes context for product legality/ethics_

> "it's just missing a lot of the things that you would want"
> — **RetroRalph**, approximately 16:45
> _Summarizes feature gaps (save states, scan lines, game customization) that impact user experience and emulation quality_

> "for $299, you're getting a 19-inch bar top, two-player with, you know, 2,000 or so games"
> — **RetroRalph**, approximately 11:00
> _Value proposition summary; establishes price point and entry-level positioning for casual gamers_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| RetroRalph | person | Host/reviewer of the video; retro gaming content creator providing product evaluation and technical analysis |
| Wicked Gamer and Collector | person | Guest expert from Netherlands providing technical deep-dive on Pandora's Box 9D motherboard architecture and comparative analysis of different Pandora's Box generations |
| Pandora's Box 9D | product | 19-inch tabletop arcade cabinet with coin-operator functionality, 2,500 games, priced at $299; features the 9D motherboard based on older Pandora's Box 5 architecture |
| Pandora's Box 5 | product | Older Pandora's Box motherboard generation; forms the technical basis for the 9D board despite being released earlier |
| Pandora's Box 3D | product | Superior alternative Pandora's Box board with better emulation quality; can be physically swapped into 9D cabinet with modifications; recommended alternative by reviewers |
| The King of Fighters | game | Example arcade game pre-loaded on Pandora's Box 9D; noted as having '80,000 versions' on the platform |
| Street Fighter | game | Frequently-used graphic artwork on Pandora's Box products; Ralph criticizes repetitive use of Street Fighter branding with 'Ryu with the gloves' across multiple units |
| Sanwa JLF | product | Joystick brand; Pandora's Box 9D uses Sanwa JLF joysticks and Sanwa button clones described as 'halfway decent' quality |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Emulation quality and technical limitations of Pandora's Box 9D, Pandora's Box product lineup comparison (5, 9, 9D, 3D generations), Value proposition and target audience (casual vs. enthusiast gamers)
- **Secondary:** Coin-operator functionality and token systems in tabletop arcades, Hardware upgrade/mod potential (board swapping compatibility), Game curation and navigation issues with large library (2,500 games)
- **Mentioned:** Unlicensed intellectual property in Chinese arcade products

### Sentiment

**Negative** (0.35) — Ralph's assessment is distinctly negative despite acknowledging some positives (form factor, price point, game volume). The 9D board choice is described as a major disappointment, and emulation issues are presented as deal-breakers for enthusiasts. Recommendation is to avoid this specific model and seek alternatives with better boards. Wicked's assessment is more measured but still critical of emulation and feature limitations.

### Signals

- **[design_philosophy]** Repetitive Street Fighter branding on all Pandora's Box products suggests formulaic Chinese manufacturing approach indifferent to aesthetic variety or IP appropriateness (confidence: medium) — Ralph: 'China, they must be like, OK, if we're going to sell it in America, it has to have Street Fighter on it...They always put this same Street Fighter graphic on it with Ryu with the gloves. I don't know why they do that'
- **[market_signal]** $299 price point positions Pandora's Box 9D as entry-level casual product, but technical limitations may undermine value proposition versus higher-end alternatives (confidence: medium) — Ralph: 'The retail price of this thing is $299...for $299, you're getting a 19-inch bar top, two-player with...2,500 games' but notes 'disappointing that they used one of my least favorite Pandora's Box boards'
- **[product_strategy]** 19-inch LCD tabletop form factor is novelty feature that differentiates this product from typical Pandora's Box offerings, but hardware limitations undercut the appeal (confidence: high) — Ralph: 'these normally don't excite me because Pandora's Boxes are just more the same over and over again, but this one's a little unique because the bar top itself has a 19 inch LCD' but later concludes the weak board is a 'non-starter' despite novelty
- **[product_concern]** Pandora's Box 9D suffering from multiple emulation issues including screen tearing, lack of save states/scan lines, inability to add games, and poor game list curation (duplicates, obscure titles) (confidence: high) — Ralph: 'plagued with a lot of emulation issues there's screen tearing'; Wicked: 'still has a lot of problems with domain emulation and screen tearing'; Ralph notes '2,500 games' but many are 'shitty games' and duplicates that cannot be removed
- **[technology_signal]** Pandora's Box product line evolution showing generational progression from 5 → 9 → 9D → 3D with variable hardware quality; 9D represents regression by using older 5-based architecture despite newer generation numbering (confidence: high) — Wicked: 'the 90 is just more like a beefcake number Five'; Ralph: 'the 9D is based on the Pandora's Box 5, which is an older Pandora's Box board'; 3D recommended as superior alternative

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## Transcript

 Hey guys, welcome back. So it's getting closer and closer to the holiday season. I'm trying to wrap up the channel for the year and there's certain products that I just never got to this year and one of them is this 19 inch Pandora's box bar top. Now these normally don't excite me because Pandora's boxes are just more the same over and over again, but this one's a little unique because the bar top itself has a 19 inch LCD. That's pretty significant for a bar top. So that kind of got me interested in the fact that it's coin operated, although, you know, I don't know when you'd actually charge someone to use it. It's still really neat. And I'll show you how that functions. But as far as like the buttons and controls and everything else, it's all the same stuff from China just rehashed their various grades of Sanwa JLF joysticks and Sanwa buttons. But these are actually decent. They're not terrible. They're halfway decent Sanwa clones. I've seen some really bad China joysticks that are like super wiggle sticks, as my buddy Wicked Gamer and Collector would say. So overall, from a looks perspective, you know, they're using this. I swear in China, they must be like, OK, if we're going to sell it in America, it has to have Street Fighter on it. I don't understand. They always put this same Street Fighter graphic on it with Ryu with the gloves. I don't know. I don't know why they do that, but hey, it doesn't look terrible, but it's just kind of like, what the heck? Why more Street Fighter? But anyways, it is what it is. But the casing itself, too, is like this hard plastic, but it's not that heavy. It's kind of a little weird, but I guess it does the trick for, it's probably very easy for them to manufacture it this way. And then the other thing before we jump into things is I really want to show you guys the coin acceptor. It's really neat. So you get this coin acceptor and then one of the really cool things is they gave you a bag of actual tokens. So they configured it to use these tokens and I'll show you the tokens in a second here. When you pop them in the corner, they go in and it registers as a credit. now we'll deep dive that in a moment but I just thought that was really cool and you know just kind of quirky and unique and fun to have at home and the fact that they gave you a whole bag of quarters is neat now you also have the ability to reprogram it so these are using some tokens that have just whatever they look like it actually looks like it's trying to look like Mickey Mouse so that's awesome so there's breaking all sorts of intellectual property and copyrights but China doesn't care about that they don't care. They never care. So this is one of those, you know, educational purposes only types of products. Okay. So the arcade, like I said, comes with all of these tokens and the tokens just go right in this coin acceptor to add as credits to the arcade. Now, if you want to get your coins out, it comes with this little key. The key will allow you to take the coin acceptor out and you can take the coins out of the coin box as well as set it to whatever coins you want it to accept. So if you wanted to accept standard quarters, you would just, you raise this little piece up and you'd put whatever it is underneath it that you want it to accept, and then it will accept that currency from there moving forward. Now when you first get the arcade, it is set up for coins only, and then I'll show you how to change it. But this is a pretty neat you know it quirky but it a really neat little additional thing just kind of for the fun of it I guess if you have kids you can just say hey look you have to pay to play kind of thing or maybe you reward them with the you know with the tokens or whatever or something like that so it's pretty cool so i'll show you how uh how this all works as far as adding credits and then we'll uh i'll show you how to put the machine on on free play okay so when it boots up you'll see it's now i can navigate the menu but if i try to press a to get into any of the games it's not going to let me because it says insert coin. So in order for me to select a game, I've got to put a coin in first. John Youssi it registers as one credit and you can set how many credits it is to play. And then at that point I can say, all right, I want to play King of Fighters, which by the way, there's like 80,000 versions of King of Fighters on here. Like there is every Pandora's box. It'll load up the game. Now, should I exit the game? I am going to need to put in credits to play another game. It's really just putting a credit per play and that's kind of it. All right, so if you want to take it off credit mode or adjust any of the other settings on the system, you just hit this little button on the back. And when you do that, it brings up the settings menu. In the settings menu, you can do a bunch of things. You can customize buttons. You can customize the system configuration. And here you can say how much you want a credit to be worth. You can then also put it on free play. So if I toggle through these, the last one should actually be free play. And there we go. So now it will no longer accept credits. You can still put them in. It's just not going to need them in order to play the game. There's a bunch of other settings on here, but this isn't necessarily a Pandora's box overview. I have a bunch of videos on that. And honestly, if you want to know more about the 9D as far as the games and all that stuff, you can just go to my buddy Wicked Gamer and Collector, and I'll drop a link in here. Sure. Oh, sure. Click the link, Retro Ralph. Yeah. No, I don't want to click the link. I want to hear from Wicked right now. Right now. Get wicked, call up the Netherlands, get his ass over here. I want to hear what he thinks. I want to know what he thinks about the 9D. So wicked, take it away. Hi guys. Hey, thanks Ralphie for having me here on the show. So in this video, we're going to take a close look at the Pandora Box 9 because you want to have my personal opinion on what do I think of this main board. So let's grab the stash and let's take a close look at the Pandora Box 9. All right, so let's talk about the Pandora Box 9. I am and it says correctly the 9D. So there's no not this freaking six is the Pandora games this is the normal nine and this is a Pandora box five that we're going to need for this part of the video and here he is our friend the Pandora box 90. So I just want to have my opinion Ralph what is with this main board and is it good is it bad so let's find out. So basically the Pandora box 99 and 9S plus whatsoever most of them are similar to the Pandora box five but one of the biggest differences that we don't have a thumb drive for the games yeah because they swapped it out we don't need a thumb drive and we're going to use an SD card or there is an SD card in this bloody thing then we're going to get the games on or if they are not naughty enough they're not going to give us the games but that what I think about it so nevertheless the Pandora box 9d is not the best board but also not the most horrible board you can get and the reason why I reviewed and have seen a lot of shitty boards of Pandora boxes but the 90 is just more like a beefcake number five that has a lot of shitty games And the shitty I mean more like double games games with weird hacks They never seen and you will never will play you can remove them from the list But you can't remove them from the sd card if there is an sd card in it But nevertheless, it's just a big messy list and still has a lot of problems with domain emulation and screen tearing you name it There's no quick load quick save and all those kind of things It's just a little bit of a bummer in my opinion. But nevertheless, the Pandora Box 90 is not the most horrible board I've seen. The really old ones are pretty horrible with very low resolution and etc. A lot of different problems. But so, the 90, it's not the most horrible board, but also not the best one. But yeah, this is what you're going to get with the Pandora Box 90. Back to you, Ralphie boy. Wicked, you're the man. Thanks, my dude. I appreciate it so much. A message from the Netherlands, not from China. a message from Netherlands. Okay, now back to your regular scheduled program. So to go back, you hit back, and then you go to save settings and reboot. And now it's going to save the system configuration, and when it reboots, it will no longer accept credits. Now you can do all sorts of things. You can skinny down the games list for the games you want and all sorts of things, because there's like 2,000 or more games on here. So it becomes really difficult to navigate with that many games, and there's no search functionality in the 9D, unfortunately. Way to go, guys. And so, you know, the Pandora's Box 3D would have been a better choice for this or the Pandora Saga 3D. And it may come in that flavor. It's just the one I received was the 9D. So if you were interested in something like this, go out and hunt and see, you know, are there other versions. Because the 9D is probably my least favorite Pandora's Box. But it does have a lot of games. And the retail price of this thing is $299. So for $299, you're getting a 19-inch bar top, two-player with, you know, 2,000 or so games. Let's see the exact amount. I believe it's 2,000. Actually, it's more than that. So it's actually 2,500 games. And, you know, they've got quite a bit on here. So there's a lot of games for really whatever it is that you're looking for. All right. The question of the hour is how does it play? So this is running the Pandora's Box 9D. Now, the 9D is based on the Pandora's Box 5, which is an older Pandora's Box board. So you can't add games to it. There's no save states. There's no scan lines. So there's a lot of things this doesn't do and it actually is plagued with a lot of emulation issues there's screen tearing so although it has a good games list and there's duplicate games too but it has a decent games list with a lot of great arcade hits the problem is is that they just don't play as well on this as opposed to other pandora's box boards such as like the pandora's box dx or the pandora's box 3d a lot of those are significantly better than this one so just if you are interested in this product it might be good to look out for one that actually has a Pandora's box board that's better, but we're going to see real quick if it's possible to upgrade it. So I'm going to see if I can fit a different Pandora's box in here. All right, so in order to gain access to the Pandora's box, there's two screws on the bottom that have to be unscrewed, and then there's these two on the back. Now, I did stick my hand in through the coin door and disconnected all the ribbon cables so we can pull this thing out. So when we pull it out, I'm going to look for a couple things. So I see that there a as I suspected the top of the VGA it goes up So that is not how other Pandora boxes are configured So let take a closer look and I tell you why I don think this is going to be that easy to upgrade. All right, let's take a closer look at the 9D as it's mounted inside the cabinet. Now, as you can see here, it has this extra USB port right here. So that actually shifts everything slightly over. So if you look, I have a regular 9, not the 9D. And you look, it has that third port, although it's covered by a sticker. So you can see where my settings button on the Pandora's box DX and the 3D are both the same. So this actually has the same exact layout. So this is the Pandora's box 3D and the DX. So those would be totally fine. But again, the VGA on this is actually pointed up, which makes sense because it connects internally to the cabinet. So even though the Pandora's box 9 is also formatted the same way, you'd have to actually figure out how am I going to connect my VGA. So you'd have to run it like out of the cabinet in. Now, keep in mind, you could totally just forget about this whole mounting system and just toss one of these inside the cabinet and any one of these would work. So it has the proper harness and everything, but it's just not going to be as straightforward as remove this board from this housing and then put whatever Pandora's box board you want in. So again, kind of following my advice, I think if you were going to look for a box like this, get it with the Pandora's box DX or 3D versus the Pandora's box 90. Cause it's just, it's just not a great board in comparison to the other two. Uh, I just couldn't leave well enough alone. So the Pandora's box DX will work 100% in here. All the cabling, the power switch, everything will work. All the buttons and joysticks. You'll just have this gap in the back. So you could probably secure it with some double sided tape. And again, you won't be able to use the factory mount. So it's not going to look amazing, but Hey, you can do it. It can be done. So where there's a will, there's a way. Alright, what is my overall feelings on this thing? You know, it's definitely more for the casual gamer. If you're really into retro gaming and you're particular about emulation and how things look, this is probably going to be a pass for you just because the emulation has quite a few issues on a lot of the games. Now if you don't care about that kind of stuff, it might be a fun device to just play with for a little while and the cost of entry isn't totally crazy. And believe me, you can have a lot of fun with it. It's just, you know, it's kind of disappointing that they used one of my least favorite Pandora's Box boards and one that you can't add games to, no scan lines, no save states. It's just missing a lot of the things that, you know, you would want. And then on top of that, the emulation issues kind of make it, you know, a non-starter for me. But anyways, it was really cool being able to showcase it for the channel and hopefully you guys enjoyed this video. If you liked it, please give me a thumbs up on the way out. Consider subscribing to the channel. Put your comments below. I want to know what you think of things like this. You know, haven't seen a 19-inch bar top. The thing's kind of huge for, you know, haven't seen one of these Pandoras in a 19-inch. So anyways, thanks for watching, guys, and we will see you on the next one.

_(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 4efdb320-019c-4f34-a51c-4721455885fd*