Pandora's Box in your Arcade1up? Is it worth it? Why so many versions?

RetroRalph·video·8m 29s·analyzed·Dec 31, 2018

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.021

TL;DR

Comprehensive Pandora's Box board guide: official vs bootleg versions, specs, and Arcade1Up integration.

Summary

Retro Ralph provides a comprehensive guide to Pandora's Box arcade emulation boards, explaining the different versions (4, 4S, 5, 5S, 6, Key, 3D), official vs. bootleg variants, and hardware compatibility considerations for Arcade1Up cabinet modifications. He distinguishes between the official 3A Games family version (green board with IDE connector, VGA/HDMI outputs) and JAMMA arcade versions, discusses game compatibility, menu systems, and provides practical recommendations for different use cases.

Key Claims

Pandora's Box was officially released in 2012 by 3A Games
high confidence · Direct statement about official release date and manufacturer
The only way to get authentic 3A Games Pandora's Box is from their AliExpress store (now rebranded as 'Pandora's Box Store')
high confidence · Ralph explicitly states this as the only official source and notes recent rebranding
The IDE-style connector harness must be ordered with the board, as sourcing it separately takes 3 weeks from China and is difficult to find locally
high confidence · Personal experience-based recommendation about procurement timing
Pandora's Box 6 can output video on both VGA and HDMI simultaneously
high confidence · Ralph tested this functionality himself and confirmed it works
Only Pandora's Box versions 5 and 6 support adding custom games via USB; earlier versions do not
medium confidence · Stated as product feature difference but not extensively detailed
Bootleg Pandora's Box boards lack intro screens, which is a distinguishing feature of official 3A Games releases
medium confidence · Observation based on testing multiple bootleg boards
Pandora's Key 3D bootleg has 2,000+ games but an unusable menu system that causes guests to abandon use within 15 seconds
medium confidence · Personal testing and user experience observation

Notable Quotes

“the only way that I can officially tell you you're going to get the actual 3A The Games product is to order it from the 3A The Games store on AliExpress”
Retro Ralph@ 1:25 — Core purchasing advice for authenticating official product
“if you don't order it with the harness and you wait you know 3 weeks to get this from China you're then going to have to place a separate order for this harness”
Retro Ralph@ 2:26 — Practical procurement tip based on personal experience
“you can use these both at the same time so if you wanted to set up a cabinet put this in your Arcade1Up and maybe put a screen up above so other people could see the game play you could do that”
Retro Ralph@ 3:03 — Feature capability that enables dual-display arcade setups
“your PlayStation 1 game experience is going to be hit or miss though”
Retro Ralph@ 3:46 — Managing expectations about PS1 emulation reliability
“anybody that steps in front of the system that's a guest in your house is going to get drained about 15 seconds when they realize they have 2,000 choices to make”
Retro Ralph@ 6:15 — Humorous but meaningful critique of poor UX on bootleg boards

Entities

Retro Ralphperson3A GamescompanyArcade1UpcompanyPandora's BoxproductPandora's Box 6productPandora's Key 3DproductGlennperson

Topics

Arcade cabinet modification and emulation hardwareprimaryPandora's Box board versions and specificationsprimaryOfficial vs. counterfeit/bootleg product authenticationprimaryArcade1Up board compatibility and installationprimaryGame emulation quality (MAME, Final Burn Alpha, PS1)secondaryHardware connectivity (JAMMA, IDE, USB)secondaryUser interface and menu system designsecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.72)— Ralph is informative and helpful throughout, recommending official products while acknowledging bootleg options. Criticism of bootleg UX is balanced and contextual rather than dismissive. Overall tone is educational and pragmatic.

Transcript

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hey guys welcome back to the channel this is retro Ralph and today's episode we're going to talk about all things Pandora's box with all these different versions how do you even know what you're going to get there's the four there's the 4S the five the 5S the Pandora key the Pandora 3D shoot I thought this was a Pandora's Box so with so many options and all this craziness we got to figure this out together so in this episode we're going to step inside the Pandoras box terab box six green never ends hey guys you just saw the intro screen to the Pandora's Box six with the tagline dream never ends that dream can quickly become a nightmare if you don't know what you're doing so where did Pandora's Box get its start so Pandora's Box officially released a system in 2012 by a company called 3A games so 3A games is the actual official manufacturer of the pandor box system well then a slew of copycats came out and they reused the Pandora's Box stick name so really the only way that I can officially tell you you're going to get the actual 3A games product is to order it from the 3A games store on Alia Express that's the only way unless you know of a vendor locally uh that sources them through uh the 3A game store then you don't really know whether you're getting a valid product or not uh I will say I think as of this video recording they rebranded their name they're not the 3A game store on AliExpress they're actually the Pandora's Box Store I believe so we'll we'll get official links in the description Fields because I think that just changed not that long ago so the board comes in two separate flavors that you need to know about there's the family version of the board this one the official one is green like this this is exactly how it looks um and it has this IDE style connector which you can buy it by itself or with the harness I would suggest you buy it as a kit with the harness cuz these harnesses are not easy to get um and if you don't order it with the harness and you wait you know 3 weeks to get this from China you're then going to have to place a separate order for this harness cuz I haven't been able to Source this locally eBay links and Amazon they all end up coming from China takes like 3 weeks to get it so that's a little tip there and then this system uses a standard if you look on the side it uses a standard 12vt uh connector so this uses a standard 12volt power supply so there's no need to put an arcade power supply on your board to use a system like this the other thing I like about this and this is specifically the pandor box 6 the other thing I like about this it has a VGA output and it has a h HMI output I have tested that you can use these both at the same time so if you wanted to set up a cab put this in your arcade one up and maybe put a screen up above so other people could see the game play you could do that which I think is kind of cool someone actually in the uh Facebook page that Glenn runs um asked about this and it does work I did test that you can do output on both um and then the other nice thing is you have this little USB stick that you can add games to so there's a format that it wants the games to be in as far as folder structures and things like that uh which I can give you more information on uh in the description but uh you can put additional games on this this will run uh mostly MIM and final burn Alpha based games as well as uh PlayStation 1 games your PlayStation 1 game experience is going to be hit or miss though um so you know for what it's worth don't expect you're going to get this awesome PlayStation 1 emulation out of this box then there's the Jamma Style version so this this is actually the bootleg version of the board I don't have an official Jamma version of this board um but C John Youssi it has a Jamma connector here so the Jamma style connector um is different because you're going to need an arcade power supply to get this to work so I don't know that I would suggest this one in the arcade oneup unless maybe you um you already wired it for Jamma and you just want something different than what you're using today so that would be my only thing on this and or if you already have an arcade C cabinet that's already wired for Jam then this is an easy plug inpl type thing because you probably already have an arcade power supply so this is really going to be your two options as far as the version of the product you're going to have you're going to have product specific versions meaning version five version six but then you're also going to have models the family version which is this one and the jamama version which I believe they're calling the arcade version these days so just keep that in mind that's a very important piece of information you need to realize when you're ordering these systems uh besides that I think the other thing that you might want to consider is the five and six I believe you can add games to Prior versions you can't so um that's another thing that you should be aware of now one other thing that I will add is that um the bootleg versions of the board dude they're all over the map so I've tested all different ones as a matter of fact I should have had this ready before I filmed this but I'm going to go grab them real quick so we've got the Pandora's key7 3D that's a bootleg version now what would be the difference in the regular pendo box in this thing well this thing's got about 2,000 plus games the menu system you can't edit so you've got to scroll through 2,000 games I actually really think this board emulates games pretty well and it plays some games the traditional Pandora's Box doesn't so this is the Pandora's key 3D but if you if you want to go through a painful menu system where you've got to scroll and scroll and scroll then yeah you can you can probably get a little bit better gameplay out of this board um it has a lot more games on it and it does seem to have a bit more of a powerful processor it plays some games that the pendor Box 6 can't but dude the menu system makes it brutal anybody that steps in front of the system that's a guest in your house is going to get bored in about 15 seconds when they realize they have 2,000 choices to make so I'm not going to recommend this although it would be fun to play with if you have extra cash and you just kind of want to play around with stuff it's kind of a fun board to play with then you you got this board this is a Pandora's Box 5 this is a bootleg it came in a blue case um it it came in this really blue sort of janky looking case this one um doesn't emulate a lot of the games well uh the menu system is a bit different doesn't have an intro screen so I've noticed that all of these bootleg boards or the majority of the ones I've tested they don't have an intro screen so pandor Pandora's Box the the three games versions tend to have these like really flashy intro screens this one does not um and that seems to be a way you can differentiate from um an official 3A games release and a non um 3A games releas is you'll you'll see you'll boot it up it'll go straight to the menu system it has no intro to anything this one actually another bootleg board so this one actually came just like this with these like um sort of like plexiglass on the top and the bottom so that's it guys I think we covered just about everything you need to know we covered the different versions of the board the jamama version the family version um we covered both the 3A games and the bootlegs um here's just real quickly here's a Arcade oneup Street Fighter board that actually is wired for the family version so that's what it would look like right there so I think we've covered just about everything um I really appreciate you guys watching this is probably just enough to get you started so you can be a little dangerous but uh hopefully this is really helpful as you try to guide you down this journey of what uh you decide to modify these arcade one-ups with or whatever other uh arcade systems you're working with so appreciate the time please like the video please subscribe and hit that notification Bell and uh we'll see you next time [Music]