# Don't Wait for Arcade1Up..Get a Counter Arcade NOW!!!

**Source:** RetroRalph  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2019-01-17  
**Duration:** 10m 59s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nDV5hq86A4

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## Analysis

Retro Ralph reviews a Papa Duke bar top arcade cabinet (TV Box) available from AliExpress, positioning it as a readily available alternative to Arcade1Up's upcoming CES-announced bar top arcade systems. The cabinet features a real glass screen, lit-up marquee, quality T-molding, and highly modifiable internal design running Pandora's Box 6 emulation software, with Ralph emphasizing its superior accessibility and customization potential compared to expected Arcade1Up specifications.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Arcade1Up announced bar top arcades, wall mounted arcades at CES but did not announce TMNT variant — _Ralph opening statement about CES announcements and teases TMNT reveal later_
- [HIGH] Papa Duke TV Box cabinet features real glass (not plexiglass) screen — _Ralph explicitly states 'this is actually a piece of real glass not plexiglass which I find interesting'_
- [MEDIUM] Arcade1Up bar tops appear to lack lit-up marquee, smaller screens, and possibly lack T-molding — _Ralph states 'From what I can see, Arcade1Up does not have a lit-up marquee. I think the screens are actually smaller than this' but adds 'don't quote me on the T-molding thing'_
- [HIGH] Papa Duke cabinet has easily accessible control panel and internal components via roller mechanism — _Ralph demonstrates opening back panel and control panel multiple times, shows internal layout with mounted components_
- [HIGH] Cabinet ships with Pandora's Box 5 or 6, and accepts standard family-style Pandora's Box harnesses for upgrades — _Ralph confirms 'They do sell this with the Pandora's box six in it' and 'It is using the family style harness'_
- [HIGH] Papa Duke cabinet ships in red and green color options — _Ralph states 'This comes in red and it comes in green. I haven't seen it in any other colors'_
- [HIGH] AliExpress shipping for this cabinet took approximately two weeks — _Ralph states 'I got this fairly quick, actually. It took me about two weeks to come in'_

### Notable Quotes

> "You gotta wait. But we don't like waiting, do we? So I have the solution for you. The TV box from China."
> — **Retro Ralph**, Opening segment
> _Sets up the core positioning of the video—immediate availability vs. waiting for Arcade1Up_

> "This box is a modder's dream you could do whatever you want with it you could replace the joysticks you could replace the buttons you could replace the power switch on the side."
> — **Retro Ralph**, Mid-review
> _Emphasizes key differentiator: accessibility and customization potential_

> "From what I can see, Arcade1Up does not have a lit-up marquee. I think the screens are actually smaller than this, and I don't think it has T-molding from what I saw."
> — **Retro Ralph**, Feature comparison section
> _Direct competitive positioning comparing Papa Duke features against Arcade1Up specifications (with stated uncertainty)_

> "If you're looking for a bar top and you didn't want to wait for Arcade1Up, I think this is really great."
> — **Retro Ralph**, Conclusion
> _Final recommendation explicitly framing Papa Duke as time-to-market alternative_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Retro Ralph | person | YouTube content creator reviewing arcade cabinets and pinball machines; host of the video |
| Arcade1Up | company | Home arcade cabinet manufacturer that announced bar top and wall-mounted arcade systems at CES; positioned as competitor to Papa Duke cabinets |
| Papa Duke | company | Arcade component and cabinet manufacturer from China; produces the TV Box bar top cabinet being reviewed |
| AliExpress | company | E-commerce platform where the Papa Duke TV Box cabinet is available for purchase |
| Pandora's Box 6 | product | Emulation system with arcade game library; installed in the reviewed cabinet and upgradeable from Pandora's Box 5 |
| Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles | product | Arcade game/theme that Ralph teases Arcade1Up has not announced but he will reveal information about later |
| CES | event | Consumer Electronics Show where Arcade1Up made its bar top and wall-mounted arcade announcements |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Bar top arcade cabinet hardware comparison, Arcade1Up product announcements and specifications, Cabinet customization and modifiability
- **Secondary:** Emulation systems and Pandora's Box variants, Import alternatives to consumer home arcade products, Time-to-market positioning for arcade products

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.82) — Ralph is enthusiastic about the Papa Duke cabinet, praising its build quality, modifiability, and features. He explicitly recommends it over waiting for Arcade1Up. Only minor negative note is the stock speakers quality, which he addresses by modifying the unit himself.

### Signals

- **[market_signal]** Arcade1Up's delayed or unreleased bar top arcade systems creating market opportunity for Chinese import alternatives with potentially superior specifications (glass screen, lit marquee, T-molding, moddability) (confidence: medium) — Ralph positions Papa Duke as immediate solution to Arcade1Up delays: 'But you gotta wait. But we don't like waiting, do we? So I have the solution for you.'
- **[product_strategy]** Papa Duke TV Box differentiates via accessibility features (slider access panels, easy component swap capability) and hardware specifications (real glass screen vs plexiglass, lit marquee) versus expected Arcade1Up design philosophy (confidence: high) — Ralph emphasizes 'you can gain access to the control panel' and 'this box is a modder's dream' multiple times; directly compares absent Arcade1Up marquee lighting
- **[supply_chain_signal]** Chinese arcade cabinet market (AliExpress distribution) enabling rapid delivery (2-week turnaround) and availability at scale, potentially disrupting traditional retail arcade cabinet distribution (confidence: medium) — Ralph notes 'I got this fairly quick, actually. It took me about two weeks to come in' for AliExpress ordering, positioning it favorably against Arcade1Up wait times

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## Transcript

Hey guys, Retro Ralph here. Thanks again for joining. There's no doubt that Arcade 1UP had a great showing at CES. They announced bar top arcades, wall mounted arcades, and well, they didn't announce the Ninja Turtles, but I got your back on that one. So the bar top's really exciting. It seemed like everyone was all gravitating toward those, and it seemed like that was something that everyone was fired up over. But guess what? You gotta wait. But we don't like waiting, do we? So I have the solution for you. The TV box from China. So in this episode, we're going to check out a pretty cool bar top that you can have right now. Hey guys, Retro Ralph here. Today we're going to do something a little different. We're going to do a product review of this bar top arcade I got from AliExpress. This thing's called the TV Box. It's a pretty cool little device. I'll spin it around for you so you can see it. Some of the external aspects of it that are really nice is it's got this really nice T-molding. So that's a nice feature of the cabinet. As we spin it in the back, it's got an external speaker. and I actually admittedly I've modified this already so I'm gonna do the review as if it it's it's on it's not been modified because I think in its in its unmodified form it was still just as good I just you know I'm a little picky about certain things so I change those and I'll let you know what those are so at first glance you got a decent sized screen this is actually a piece of real glass not plexiglass which I find interesting it has an actual lit up marquee as you can see this was the original marquee artwork I replaced it actually the funny thing is is the printer didn't print it right so I'm gonna have to go back to the drawing board on that so nice nice marquee that shows up right there so out of the box looks really nice and I'll power it all up for you in a minute the joystick I did put a bat top on it so it's got a bat top joystick but the joysticks pretty decent and the buttons are all pretty clicky so nice buttons this particular one is running it was running Pandora's box 5 I actually upgraded it and put a 6 in it I'm not actually doing this review on the Pandora's box however I'm just doing the review on this TV box so I have other reviews that I've done on the Pandora's box so I say what we're going to do is we'll power this thing up I'll show you a little bit of its operation and then I also show you if you did want to modify this it actually a really slick cabinet design and I show you how you can gain access to the controls So I go power this thing on and then we continue on Guys so we going to power this thing up now It's got two switches in the back. I'm going to put the marquee aside. It's got two switches in the back. One of them controls the lit marquee. So you can see I can flick the marquee on and off. And the other one powers up the whole unit. So if I power that one down, it powers everything down. So you can see it booting up right now. It's running Pandora's box six, like I said. So I'm going to swing it around so you can see some of the really neat aspects about the system. So one of the things I like quite a bit is the way they've given you access to the inside of the cabinet. So this acts as a handle so you can pick it up, but it also has, it's on these little rollers. so you can actually open up the back of the unit, which I think is really cool. So this isn't exactly what it looked like when I got it, but like I said, I liked the way it was when I got it. I'm just a little picky about things. So as you can see here, it's just your standard LCD monitor, which is great. It's actually a pretty decent one. And then you've got your LCD controller board right there. They've mounted the power supply for the unit here on the right-hand side. And then I'm going to just pull this out. So like I said, I put the Pandora's box six in here. They do sell this with the Pandora's box six in it. I just cheaped out and bought the cheaper one and I ended up updating it anyway. So they do sell it as a five and a six. And it is using the family style harness. So if you have any other Pandora's box system, you could put it in here. So you're not stuck with just the whatever Pandora's box system it ships with. So it's really nice. It's really easy to modify if you wanted to. now on the speaker front I don't think I left it I did leave the stock speaker in here as an example it had two of these they're not very good so like I said it's a great bar top for what it is but these speakers weren't very good so what I did was I just put my own speaker here on the back backside of the cabinet so I left this one plugged in because I haven't had a chance to put a right in a left so I left one of them plugged in and I'll put the volume up here in a little bit so you have a little so you can hear a little bit of the volume so the volume control I haven't had a chance to take the Pandora's box 6 out of this case but if I did I could mount it right here so this is the the stock board was mounted here and the nice thing is is these screws come out and this whole piece slides out so this whole thing is very well designed as far as your ability to be able to modify it which I love I love that so we put this panel back on and I want to show you something else that really neat about this system And keep in mind guys the reason why I named the title of this video the name that I did is that this is going to give you so much more flexibility than the ones that Arcade 1-Up is coming out with. From what I can see, Arcade 1-Ups does not have a lit-up marquee. I think the screens are actually smaller than this. and I don't think it has T-molding from what I saw. It might, so don't quote me on the T-molding thing. I don't know if it does, but this thing's got great quality T-molding. It's got this nice marquee. I've actually removed this and it has a very nice LED strip mounted there, but this is probably one of the coolest things about it. So I was wondering how you got this control panel off. I thought maybe you didn't have access to it at all. and I first I had taken these screws off and all that did was take the plexiglass cover off and I'm going this is weird how the heck do you open this but how you open it is it has those roller connections just like the uh just like the back side and you can gain access to the control panel so I mean if you really wanted this box is a modder's dream you could do whatever you want with it you could replace the joysticks you could replace the buttons you could um replace the power switch on the side. I mean, there's a million things you could do with this. So I just, I'm really loving this box for, uh, for a bar top. And you know, now that I made a couple of these little modifications, I feel like it's perfect for what I wanted it for. It's a little tricky to get this back in. So just bear with me because you have to get right on these rollers. There we go. So guys, I, this is a really neat option. I mean, right now it's running Pandora's box six. You guys can go online and pull up what games run on Pandora's Box 6. But I will play a game just so you can kind of see what the monitor looks like. Let's see. I'll pick a game here. We'll do Street Fighter. There's your credits. Keep in mind the speaker's in the back, so you're not going to really hear it as well. I'm so used to playing my other systems where the joysticks are a lot different. So, ah shoot. So I'm getting, you know, every time you play Street Fighter in a different cabinet you kind of have to get used to the way the joysticks work. This one's a little bit looser than I'd normally like. anyway you gonna see me get my butt kicked if I can pull off a Hadouken that be awesome So like I said guys really cool cabinet This button is pause and exit. So if you hit this just like in a regular Pandora's box, it'll give you the ability to exit the game. So guys, I know this is a quick and brief review, but I would highly recommend this unit, actually. If you're looking for a bar top, the reason why I like this is because it's highly moddable. The screen's a really good screen. I like this touch with a really good quality glass right here. You can mod the marquee because all you do is you take these screws off and you can put whatever graphics you want on it. I'm sure if you went to a printer, you could easily have different side graphics put on it if you wanted to. This comes in red and it comes in green. I haven't seen it in any other colors, but I really think this is a great contender for a bar top. So if you were looking for a bar top and you didn't want to wait for Arcade 1 up, I think this is really great. And honestly, unless you're hung up on the graphics, the external graphics, they've done a really good job putting this together. I love the ability to open these things up and gain access to the system really easily. So I'd have to recommend this, guys. So I'm going to leave a link in the description to this device. And if you were looking for a bar top, why not, guys? And it's AliExpress. So keep in mind, you know, you're going to have shipping times that are maybe a lot longer than you'd like. But I got this fairly quick, actually. It took me about two weeks to come in. So that was fairly quick for ordering something from AliExpress. But anyways, thanks for watching, guys. I really appreciate it. Please, if this was useful to you, like the video, subscribe to the channel, and don't forget to hit that notification bell so you can be informed of future videos. but thanks for watching guys and we'll see you again soon villages we

_(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: b325ea90-cc33-458a-8696-f95a7def9b51*