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Gun4IR - The Unbeatable Lightgun of 2023!

RetroRalph·video·20m 18s·analyzed·Aug 11, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

RetroRalph showcases Gun4IR lightgun 2023 updates and RPEG Electronics' arcade gun solutions.

Summary

RetroRalph reviews Gun4IR, an infrared lightgun technology for arcade games, showcasing 2023 updates including mechanical piston recoil, improved LEDs, and custom cables. The video demonstrates Gun4IR's accuracy and features through gameplay in House of the Dead 3, Terminator 2, Friction, Time Crisis, and Aliens Armageddon, while highlighting RPEG Electronics' distribution and customization services.

Key Claims

  • Gun4IR uses four IR LED points for automatic calibration and maintains accuracy regardless of player position or number of players

    high confidence · Technical explanation of Gun4IR core functionality; corroborated by product demonstration

  • New Gun4IR LEDs are three times more powerful than original ones, improving accuracy on both larger and smaller screens

    high confidence · Jon Hey's direct statement about 2023 hardware upgrades; demonstrated in gameplay footage

  • Gun4IR has mechanical piston recoil that responds intelligently to on/off-screen shooting and game events via MAMEHooker software integration

    high confidence · Detailed demonstration in House of the Dead 3 and Terminator 2 gameplay; software behavior explained

  • Gun4IR is not sensitive to environmental lighting conditions, unlike competing technologies like Sinden

    high confidence · Jon Hey's explicit comparison statement during gameplay demonstration

  • RPEG Electronics is the exclusive distributor of arcade-condition GunCon 1 guns and can perform custom Gun4IR conversions

    high confidence · Jon Hey's direct attribution to Raymond Dye/RPEG as distributor and Jack·Bot as technology creator

  • Raymond Dye at RPEG has produced a Time Crisis 3 pedal conversion to USB that replicates the arcade pedal experience

    high confidence · Demonstrated in video; Jon Hey notes it's arcade quality and available for purchase

  • Several arcade cabinet builders (Extreme Home Arcades, Retro Lizard, Vic VP, Skarkade, Extreme Gaming Cabinets) now support Gun4IR with built-in IR sensors

    high confidence · Jon Hey references Raymond's statement about builder partnerships; notes plug-and-play availability

  • Gun4IR requires software configuration and is not plug-and-play; Retro Lizard sells pre-configured drives as a solution

    high confidence · Jon Hey's explicit disclaimer about software setup; mentions Retro Lizard alternative

Notable Quotes

  • “Gun for IR, right? Gun for IR. Four IR sensors, four positions, it tracks the gun no matter where I'm standing... Probably the fastest tracking of any gun available on the market.”

    Jon Hey@ 4:28 — Core value proposition of Gun4IR technology; claims superior tracking speed vs competitors

  • “It is the best. It is absolutely the best. It is my favorite solution.”

    Jon Hey@ 17:48 — Strong endorsement summary; establishes Jon's bias but also credibility from extensive testing

  • “There's solutions for everybody and every price point, but it is the best.”

    Jon Hey@ 17:43 — Acknowledges market alternatives while maintaining Gun4IR superiority claim

  • “Raymond makes me laugh, man, because that PC he sent me, his main motivation for even doing this was that when he saw my Retro Shooter video, he's like, I can do it way better than that.”

    Jon Hey@ 16:17 — Reveals competitive relationship between Gun4IR/RPEG and Retro Shooter; shows product iteration motivation

  • “Now you'll notice something kind of interesting that's happening. When I'm out of bullets, watch, it's no longer doing the recoil. That's actually a feature of a piece of software called MAMEHooker.”

    Jon Hey@ 5:48 — Explains software integration enabling game-aware recoil behavior; demonstrates technical sophistication

  • “Gun for IR is not sensitive to environment and lighting and things like that. So a lot of the gun technologies, especially Sindin, is sensitive to light and different lighting conditions.”

    Jon Hey — Direct competitive comparison with Sinden; claims environmental robustness advantage

Entities

Jon HeypersonRaymond DyepersonJack·BotpersonRPEG ElectronicscompanyGun4IRproductGunCon 1productHouse of the Dead 3gameTerminator 2gameTime CrisisgameAliens Armageddongame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: RPEG Electronics expanding market reach through custom conversion services, multiple cabinet builder partnerships, and complementary products (Time Crisis pedal); business model shifting from product-only to service-inclusive

    high · Jon details RPEG's Time Crisis gun conversion, pedal conversion, custom build services, and partnerships with 5+ cabinet builders; Raymond's professional support model emphasized

  • ?

    community_signal: Raymond Dye providing extended loan/demo program for YouTube influencers to showcase Gun4IR capabilities; product placement through relationship-building rather than sponsorship

    high · Jon explicitly states video is not sponsored but he sent Raymond money; Raymond's strategy of sending impressive hardware to trigger purchase intent; acknowledgment of Raymond's sales methodology

  • $

    market_signal: Gun4IR positioning as premium solution with acknowledging alternative price points exist; software complexity (requiring MAMEHooker setup or pre-configured drives) differentiating from true plug-and-play competitors

    medium · Jon explicitly states Gun4IR costs more; emphasis on software configuration requirements and Retro Lizard workaround; acknowledges solutions exist for different budgets

  • ?

    product_strategy: Gun4IR 2023 updates include three major upgrades: mechanical piston recoil with intelligent on/off-screen detection, improved 3x-power LEDs for larger screen compatibility, and slimlined discrete LED housing design

    high · Detailed technical walkthrough and gameplay demonstration of all three features; Jon emphasizes consistency powered by discrete DC supply vs battery-dependent competitors

  • ?

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.061

0:00
Hey guys, welcome back! Okay, in today's video we're going to talk about Gun4IR, the updates for 2023. I had sent all my old guns to Raymond Dye over at RPEG Electronics and had them upgraded to the latest, greatest Gun4IR technology. So that way I can showcase it for you. But if you missed it, I'm going to do a quick recap in a second of Gun4IR so you know what the heck we're talking about. And then at the end of the video, I'll have links to the other videos that I've done on the Gun4IR technology. But, before we get started, I wanted to let you know, this video is not sponsored by RPEG Electronics. As a matter of fact, I sent him money! So, this isn't really working the way these videos are supposed to work. I'm supposed to get stuff, but I didn't get stuff here. Raymond always has a way of taking my money, I don't know, but he sells cool stuff, what can I say? But anyways, he also let me borrow this mini PC that's loaded with games that I'm supposed to have to give back But I have a feeling I'm gonna be giving him even more money because I'm probably gonna want to buy that and then he sent Me something really cool that I'm not gonna show you till the end of the video and he said that's for sale as well So Raymond's kind of a good sales guy I think because he's sending me cool stuff and I like cool stuff. So then I'll buy it I think he's figuring out the pattern of how I operate by now But anyways, here's a little quick update of Gun For IR just so you can understand the basics of what we're going to talk about before we go into it. Okay, let's talk about the tech really quick. The Gun For IR is made with a Japan-exclusive Black Gun Con 45. It uses four points of LEDs, and you can see them around the screen here, as well as the microprocessor inside the gun itself to automatically calibrate and self-correct on the fly, regardless of your position. so it maintains accuracy even when you move to the sides of the screen or you have more than one player playing at one given time.
1:57
The new black LEDs are three times more powerful than the original ones so when used with this fisheye lens it allows for better accuracy on larger screens and smaller screens. Think of it like this, when you're at a movie theater the further back you are, the better the view. With the fisheye lens, you really expand the viewing angle of the camera inside so it has a better accuracy and better view on all of the LEDs for more accurate tracking.
@ 6:38

  • “I don't think there's any better way to play this at home unless you actually had the real arcade cabinet.”

    Jon Hey@ 12:08 — High praise for Time Crisis setup authenticity; establishes arcade-fidelity benchmark

    • Frictiongame
    MAMEHookerproduct
    Retro Lizardcompany
    Extreme Home Arcadescompany
    Vic VPcompany
    Skarkadecompany
    Extreme Gaming Cabinetscompany
    Sindenproduct
    Retro Shooterproduct
    RetroRalphperson

    technology_signal: Gun4IR establishing market leadership through environmental robustness (lighting-insensitive vs Sinden) and superior tracking speed; arcade cabinet manufacturers (Extreme Gaming Cabinets, Retro Lizard, etc.) integrating built-in IR support for plug-and-play adoption

    high · Jon's direct competitive comparison with Sinden; multiple builder partnerships announced; Raymond's motivation to exceed Retro Shooter performance indicates iteration cycle

    2:24
    So let's talk a little bit about the updates for 2023. There's a mechanical piston recoil that's now been added to the gun. What's really cool about it is there's some smart features built in as well. So if I single click it, it's gonna give me a single recoil, like a single shot from a gun. If I hold it down, I'm gonna get a repetitive fire. And you can see, something interesting about it is it's consistent. It's got a discrete DC power supply at the end, which allows for consistent power to it. So it's not gonna fade out, there's no battery to charge or anything. Every time you do it, it's gonna be full power. That's pretty awesome. It's also smart enough to know when you're off the screen. So if I'm shooting and I go off the screen, it's no longer doing that. What it is doing is there's a rumble motor in the handle. I don't know if you can hear this.
    3:14
    Hopefully the mic is picking that up. But there's a rumble motor very similar to what you'd have in like a modern gaming controller in the handle. That serves two purposes. When I do this, I shoot off the screen telling me, hey, I got to reload. But also one of the really cool things about this is if I'm getting hit in certain games, it will actually give me that vibration feedback, which is really cool. The other new thing he added to the gun was he added these really cool new cables. They're custom cables. They're very long They're a perfect length and you have two connections. You have your USB connection So that's to connect the gun to the PC and then you have your discrete DC power supply connection And like I said, you're gonna get that continuous Rumble feature or or the piston force feedback feature and it's not gonna fade or diminish on you, which is really neat The other thing that he just started doing it's brand new is they use these black European, I believe they're European, I could have that wrong, they're these black LEDs. They slim-lined the LEDs, they're even slimmer, they're smaller, and they're even more discreet. So you'll see them, I have them hidden here, and you can hardly see them. There's one on the top, the bottom, the left, and the right. Gun for IR, right? Gun for IR. Four IR sensors, four positions, it tracks the gun no matter where I'm standing. So as long as you know, in the general vicinity, it's going to track the gun accurately and very, very fast. Probably the fastest tracking of any gun available on the market. So it makes it very, very arcade accurate. The other thing that's really cool is the gun also has a great micro switch inside the trigger. You can hear it. Here's a closer look at it. So you can see there's the micro switch And just so you know this is the Japanese Gun Con 1 that was originally from the PlayStation Now Raymond gets these at RPEG They like new condition and he an exclusive distributor for these so this is what you going to get here. And just to reiterate, RPEG is the distributor, and JB Bongrad is the person that designed the gun for IR technology. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to fire up a game and show you a little bit of how this gun works in action. Okay, the first game I'm going to feature for you is House of the Dead 3. Oh man, that is brutal. I gotta save my friends. This guy's got his neck completely bitten off. So you'll notice right now, this is an interesting feature.
    5:41
    I can reload off screen, but I can also reload by pressing one of the guns. So you can reload either way. Now, you'll notice something kind of interesting that's happening. When I'm out of bullets, watch, it's no longer doing the recoil. That's actually a feature of a piece of software called Mame Hooker. I know, it's a weird name. It's sort of complementary software. You'll need to look up how to do that yourself, but you can do that kind of thing where it does almost like direct output from certain games to tell the gun to do certain things, like I'm out of bullets. So for instance, right now, again, I'm out of bullets. Now, one of the features of the gun that you will have is if I'm off screen, it won't recoil either. It knows enough to know I'm off the screen. But you can see the gun is super accurate. I can move around too. Like I can go over here.
    6:33
    Same accuracy. I can move over here. Same accuracy. Now I did want to mention something. Gun for IR is not sensitive to environment and lighting and things like that. So a lot of the gun technologies, especially Sindin is sensitive to light and different lighting conditions. You don't have to worry about that for Gun4IR.
    7:00
    I love shooting them when they're down. Okay, let's check out another game. The next game I'm going to show you is Terminator 2. Okay. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent.
    7:20
    Okay, let's get started. Okay, like I said, with the solenoid, you're going to get this awesome... Now, this game actually does slow down the solenoid, and it does do that. But, like I said, you're going to get that consistent motion. You got your button on the side to launch your missiles. Now, something I didn't know about Terminator, I didn't know that MAME had some built-in cheats for it, and you feel pretty badass when you turn everything on. This game's hard as balls to begin with, but it's kinda badass when you have every weapon that you can get! Yeah! Yeah, suck it! Okay, so anyway, but yeah, this game's hard, man. The replayability of Terminator 2, if you haven't played it in forever, you're going to be like, oh man, I know why I spent like six million dollars in the arcade playing it. But yeah, it plays great on this, obviously. And yeah, with the cheats, it's pretty badass. I actually never really played with the cheats because I'm not a cheating kind of guy. You guys know me. I don't play games on easy. I play them on the hardest settings possible. You guys know that about me. well you get the point what we're going to do now is we're going to head upstairs because raymond sent me that pc and something that's really crazy that i want to show you guys so let's go upstairs and i also want to show you something really neat that he sells for time crisis okay so we're upstairs and i want to show you this because this is one of the guns that i sent to raymond so this is one i sent to rpeg so you'll notice this is a little worn but this is an original time crisis 1 or Time Crisis 2 gun. I got this in an arcade trade. The guy just had two of them and he's like, do you want these? And I'm like, sure. But I didn't own a Time Crisis arcade cabinet. So when I asked Raymond, I said, could you modify this for gun for IR? And he did just that. So he added a couple of buttons on one side for little action items within the game. This one actually has a 24 volt solenoid. So this one's got the original arcade solenoid he was able to repurpose. And yeah, this is an original Time Crisis gun that has been converted to Gunfryer. So you can see there's some wear still on it, but he cleaned it up as best he could, and I think it came out really awesome. So I'm going to show you this gun in action, because you'll see this has got some slider recoil to it, which is pretty cool. And with the 24-volt solenoid, it hits a little bit different. So let's test it out. Okay, so it would be natural to check out a Time Crisis game with a Time Crisis gun but I noticed the PC that Raymond loaned me his personal PC had friction on it And that a game many of you probably don even know about It was actually a kit game that replaced Time Crisis games You gotta check this out and then you get to see how the recoil works on this Time Crisis gun Okay, let's go!
    10:23
    Now these custom buttons that, uh, Raymond put on the gun can be used to reload too. Now the thing that's awesome about this game is it's so many awesome weapons. There's no storyline, it's just all about blowing shit up and just being extremely aggressive. And I love it. If you've never played it, you've got to check it out. The code is out there for this game so you can find it. So just look up Friction and you'll find it. Now I have a machine gun, so check this out.
    10:57
    I love this game. You guys, if you have a light gun build, you have to have friction. It's just non-stop aggressive, nutsy cuckoo action, and I freaking love it.
    11:14
    All these barrels you can blow up. There's tons of power-ups and amazing guns. I can't say enough awesome things about this game. and having the time crisis gun with this 24 volt solenoid kicks ass but that's enough friction for now let's go check out let me blow these two guys away first let's check out time crisis i want to show you another thing that raymond sells it's really cool okay what i always say is if you're gonna play time crisis you gotta do it with some style you You gotta play it with the original gun and something really cool that Arpeggio sells which is a Time Crisis pedal. Now this isn't the original pedal from 1 or 2, this is Time Crisis 3 pedal, but it's basically the same kind of mechanism and it's arcade quality that he converted into USB. So let's go. I don't think there's any better way to play this at home unless you actually had the real arcade cabinet. this does pretty much simulate having the real thing. And like I said before, having that 24 volt solenoid in here, even though the 12 volt ones in his regular guns work good, this is like next level because it's the exact same solenoid you'd have in the arcade gun. So I'm absolutely loving this because Time Crisis is probably my favorite. It's up there with the top, my top five favorite light gun games of all time. It's that good. It feels like you're in a movie. It's non-stop action, and the pedal and everything, it just makes this so, you know, so realistic to the arcade experience, and you can't really beat that. What we're going to do now is we're going to check out the gun, this special gun that Raymond let me borrow. He says it's for sale, but man, it's a little too rich for my blood, but keep in mind, the pedal I just showed you, he does make and sell those so if you're interested in having that set up at home you can totally do that just contact Raymond and he'll he'll figure it out with you but anyways before we wrap up the video let's check out this gun this mystery gun that uh that our peg sent me all right we're gonna give aliens Armageddon a shot with the actual aliens Armageddon gun how cool is this okay we're gonna start at chapter one now keep in mind like I said grenade and reload so this is mapped exactly like the real arcade game is.
    13:46
    Alright, let's do it. This gun makes me feel like a total badass. Alright, let's go. Oh, it gave me grenades. Alright, let's try these out.
    14:03
    That's awesome. Bam! I missed him. There we go. Alright, there's my reload. Remember, reload is this.
    14:15
    Oh, I'm out of grenades. Okay. Ah, shoot, man. They get right up in your face. I've never actually played this before. Aliens' Extermination is one of my favorite games, so this is like a continuation, I think, of that.
    14:27
    I actually don't know how many... Oh, I got a smart gun. What's the smart gun? Alright. Oh, yes. This is so freaking cool, man. Go figure that Raymond would give me this amazing thing and be like, yeah, you know, if you want it, you can buy it. He knows me all too well. This is freaking ridiculously epic.
    14:53
    Oh my gosh, I love it. I mean, talk about having an arcade experience at home. All right, I got an assault rifle. Let's go.
    15:06
    Okay well I having way too much fun with this I going to want to keep playing this So what I going to do is I going to you know put this down for now and then I I gonna wrap you up with some final thoughts and I tell you where you get all these goodies that RPEG electronic sells
    15:23
    Check one, two, three, four. So one thing I wanted to make sure is clear is the software portion of this, you're on your own for. The guns you can get through RPEG, and they'll be ready to go out of the box, but you need to set up the software. So just like Sindin, the software portion is not done for you. So if you're looking for plug and play, this isn't it, but Retro Lizard actually sells a drive that's pre-configured. You just tell them which gun you have, and then the drive is pre-configured with, I think, a couple hundred games or something like that. So there are options out there to turn Gun for IR into something more plug and play, but I just wanna let you know that. So don't go buying this thinking you're gonna plug it in and everything's gonna magically work. You're probably gonna have to set it up yourself, which shouldn't be too hard because there's resources everywhere, or get a drive like one that Retro Lizard provides.
    16:11
    Well guys, that about wraps up this video. Raymond makes me laugh, man, because that PC he sent me, his main motivation for even doing this was that when he saw my Retro Shooter video, he's like, I can do it way better than that. And basically every single problem that I had with the Retro Shooter, he went and fixed in his own build and said I could build my own custom build. Now he doesn't sell this, But he just, it was just, he's just that kind of guy. He's a perfectionist. And he just wanted to show me, like, I can do it way better. And he did. Of course he did. He's, I've known him for a long time. We've been friends for a while now. And he takes very much pride in the things that he does and the work that he does. And he supports it in a really professional manner, too. Like, whenever you have problems, he'll remote into your system and help you fix it. He's a really good dude. But he really impressed me with what he did with my time crisis gun. I mean, it looks awesome. If you're interested in the Gun Con 1 that I showed in the beginning of the video, that he sells on his website. I'll have a link in the description of the video to that. The other thing he did mention to me is I guess he only has one more of these left, and I'm not sure he has plans to redo these. So he does offer a pedal, and he wanted me to let you know that his is way better than the Retro Shooter one. So yeah, he's all amped up about the Retro Shooter stuff right now. I don't blame him. I mean, gun for IR, it does cost more, right? There's solutions for everybody and every price point, but it is the best. It is absolutely the best. It is my favorite solution. And yeah, I mean, this thing is ridiculous that he sent me. or you can't even fit that whole thing in the frame it's so big um i'm obviously not going to buy this but good good try good try raymond good try but it's not going to work this time even though man it was pretty pretty awesome i gotta admit i'll have all the links in the description to all the stuff i showed i'm obviously really biased i love gun for ir but it's because it is the best it tracks the best the quality of the guns are the best uh and the cool thing is is so like what Raymond did here, if you have a gun and you want to do a service like this, he'll do this for you. So if you have a gun that you want to convert into a gun for IR, he'll absolutely do that for you. So he offers custom services, and then obviously the product he sells the most is the GunCon 1, and for good reason. It's a built, put together product. It looks great, and he takes great pride in putting it together. So I want to say a couple things. Thank you to JB for creating this awesome technology in the first place and for Raymond, you know, being the distributor and putting these things together for us. Now, there's one other thing that he mentioned, and I know I'm going to forget, so I figured I'd pull up my notes really quick. He wanted to also let you guys know that there are several builds that actually have Gun For IR support. He said builders like Extreme Home Arcades, Retro Lizard, Vic VP, I know Vic VP, Skarkade, and Extreme Gaming Cabinets, they actually come with the LEDs built in so extreme gaming cabinets are plug-and-play with gun for IR because they build that technology or they provide the IR sensors now keep in mind the beginning of this video I showed you the old IR sensors the new ones are slimline they look exactly like this this is what the new ones look like they're very very slim so if you order them now that's the ones that you'll get anyways guys thanks so much for watching let me know what think about Gun4IR in the comments below, give me a thumbs up if you liked the video, and consider subscribing to the channel. Thanks so much for watching guys, and we will see you on the next one.
    20:16
    you