Arcade1up Xbox One Mortal Kombat 11 is HERE - Nextgen Modding!

RetroRalph·video·18m 56s·analyzed·May 24, 2019

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.020

TL;DR

Xbox One-powered Arcade1up MK11 mod with custom art, Sanwa controls, and multi-game compatibility.

Summary

RetroRalph showcases a custom Arcade1up Mortal Kombat 11 cabinet mod powered by Xbox One, featuring custom artwork by Joe Sabo, Sanwa joysticks with bat top extensions, and an encoder board system that converts PlayStation 2 controller signals to Xbox One via USB. The build demonstrates versatility by running multiple games beyond Mortal Kombat, including Capcom beat-em-up titles, Streets of Rage, and even analog stick-compatible titles like Forza, with full Xbox functionality.

Key Claims

Joe Sabo created custom artwork for the control panel with pre-drilled acrylic top
high confidence · RetroRalph describing the mod in detail at the beginning of the video
The control panel uses a DIY Retro Arcades blank birch wood board as the base
high confidence · RetroRalph explicitly identifying the wood board source while discussing control panel construction
The system uses an encoder board connected to an Xbox One via a serial adapter and PlayStation 2 to Xbox One converter with zero input lag
high confidence · RetroRalph demonstrating and explaining the technical setup at the back of the cabinet
Sanwa joystick extenders are necessary due to the thicker mounting depth caused by the acrylic top overlay
high confidence · RetroRalph explaining joystick height adjustment and demonstrating the extender piece
Loctite thread locker prevents Sanwa extension pieces from coming loose during gameplay
high confidence · RetroRalph providing a maintenance tip for the joystick extensions
The cabinet can play multiple game titles beyond Mortal Kombat through Xbox Game Pass/digital downloads including Street Fighter IV, Streets of Rage, Killer Instinct, Capcom beat-em-up bundle, and Forza
high confidence · RetroRalph demonstrating gameplay and menu access for multiple titles throughout the video
The joystick can be reconfigured to act as an analog stick for games like Forza through hot button combinations
high confidence · RetroRalph demonstrating analog stick functionality for Forza Horizon

Notable Quotes

“I have not seen artwork this good as far as from the Arcade1Up community, and Joe is awesome.”
RetroRalph@ 2:08 — High praise for Joe Sabo's custom artwork quality
“So there is no input lag that I can see here, and I want to show that to you guys in a second.”
RetroRalph@ 5:50 — Confirms performance quality of the Xbox One encoder system
“This is one of those things where my buddy George kind of tried to talk me into doing this mod, and now I can't thank him enough. It's awesome.”
RetroRalph@ 18:05 — Acknowledgment of influencer/collaborator in the mod project
“The sky's the limit. You have access to all of these games. It's just freaking cool.”
RetroRalph@ 17:38 — Captures enthusiasm for the flexibility of Xbox-based arcade cabinet
“This system will get the most use probably out of all of them that I have. So kind of crazy because this is one of those things where my buddy George kind of tried to talk me into doing this mod.”
RetroRalph@ 18:01 — Predicts high usage and validates the mod's practical appeal

Entities

RetroRalphpersonJoe SabopersonDIY Retro ArcadescompanyArcade1upcompanyMortal Kombat 11gameXbox OneproductSanwacompanyStreet Fighter IVgameFinal FightgameStreets of RagegameKiller InstinctgameForzagame

Signals

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community_signal: Custom arcade cabinet modding community actively creating and sharing artwork and technical solutions (Joe Sabo artwork, DIY Retro Arcades components, encoder solutions)
high · RetroRalph credits Joe Sabo for artwork, DIY Retro Arcades for wood boards, and describes the ecosystem of available modification options
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market_signal: Arcade1up modding community expanding from artwork/aesthetic customization to significant hardware replacement (console integration), indicating higher-tier DIY enthusiast segment
medium · RetroRalph describes this as 'nextgen modding' in title and notes: 'It was a lot more simple than I thought. So anyways, guys, I'm actually speechless.'
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product_strategy: Xbox One encoder system using PlayStation 2 to Xbox One converter enables full Xbox game library access on arcade cabinet hardware with zero input lag
high · RetroRalph demonstrates the technical setup: 'This breakout box then goes to these little devices here that go from a PlayStation 2 connection and it converts that into an Xbox One connection and then it plugs in via USB on the back.'
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technology_signal: Arcade1up cabinets being repurposed with modern gaming hardware (Xbox One) rather than emulation-based solutions, enabling access to contemporary game libraries
high · Entire video demonstrates Xbox One integration replacing traditional emulation approach; RetroRalph notes: 'The sky's the limit. You have access to all of these games.'

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.057

0:00

get over here so all right guys here it is i am so excited about this mod this is joe sabo's artwork he kicks serious, but oh my gosh, it looks so good. All the detail from the marquee to the bezel to the control panel is all really, really good. I mean, some of the best I've seen. So let's talk about the control panel for a minute while we're here. So he made a custom acrylic top that already had all the buttons pre-drilled out. So I really didn't have to do much there. However, this is just a small acrylic top. As you can see, it's thin. So it's like a thin plastic. Although this is actually thicker than the arcade one up topper. But yeah, so this lays over the actual wood board that I used for the CP. So this wood board is actually DIY retro arcades. It's a blank birch wood board. But what I did was I took the overlay and put it on top of birch wood board and then I drilled the holes so I basically drew circles or outlines of the all the button configurations and then drilled them you know into the board so that I could run the buttons through so this is a really awesome piece and the way he designed it it actually comes over the edge I don't know if you can see that but see it actually comes over this lip comes over wider than the control panel and I think when you back up it has an overall killer look because of that. I really, really think that looks awesome. So let's take a closer look at the artwork really fast. So his artwork is very, very detailed, as you can see. I mean, I have not seen artwork this good as far as from the arcade one-up community, and Joe is awesome. So he was saying that he was thinking about extending the artwork, so he was going to have a the riser art that would extend down so I think that's really cool so obviously one of the most special things about this mod is that it is actually running off of an Xbox one so obviously that's gonna that's gonna spark a lot of questions as to how I did that and we're gonna get into that in a minute but you will notice that it has you know eight buttons on each side you've got your Sanwa sticks and you've got your start slash options button but there's a back button on the Xbox controller that you need to have so that you can access the menu systems so right now these two buttons are acting as that the reason why they're the micro switches are just are just sitting out like this is because I haven't I didn't know where I was gonna put these yet so I realize that's not complete I just got really excited and wanted to show you guys this mod sooner than later, but I will end up putting those somewhere. You know, I was thinking they could go here on the front panel, which I've done before, or what I was really thinking might be cool is putting it somewhere on the side. Although the reason why I didn't want to put it on the side is because I really like this artwork and I didn't want to put the button there. So we'll see. For right now, that's where it's going to stay, but I might move it. All right, so let's go to the back and see what's powering this thing. Okay, so we're around the back now, And the first thing I want to tell you guys is I have not cleaned up any of the wires. It's all really just kind of more of a work in progress, although everything is fully functional right now. So that is the monitor mount that you may have seen on a prior video. I'll have a link that pops up right here if you want to see that. The wire you have hanging down here is actually the switch for the marquee. I'm going to switch it on and then I'll show you that in a minute. But yeah, that's the lit marquee. Normally I mount this on the cabinet. I just haven't gotten to that yet. So what you really want to see is what it takes to power all this stuff. So you've got your Xbox One here, and you have this little adapter kit right here that has a serial adapter. And so this serial adapter actually goes from an encoder board that's on the control panel. You can't see it because it's mounted to the control panel, but there is a controller board there. So that serial connection goes to this breakout box. This breakout box then goes to these little devices here that go from a PlayStation 2 connection and it converts that into an Xbox one connection and then it plugs in via USB on the back so I'm actually going to show you guys the diagram of how you do this now I disassemble the tank stick you can see that right here I just assembled the tank stick but that's only because I had one but I did find out that you can actually buy the encoder board and the wiring kit separate. So you may be able to do this same thing without actually owning a tank stick. So kind of cool. So there are probably several other ways you could do this. One of the ways I thought was maybe using a arcade, you know, an Xbox One arcade stick. Problem with this one is that in order for the buttons to work the way this encoder works is you have to actually have an Xbox one joystick plugged or controller sorry plugged into this at every at any time I didn't really want that now I'm not saying that this is the only alternative option there's probably many of them it's just this one works out really well with zero input lag so there is no input lag that I can see here and I want to show that that to you guys in a second so I'm gonna flip the cabinet around I'm going to talk about a couple more things real quick and then I'll jump into we'll jump into gameplay and how this thing works and what options you have to you alright so getting back to the front of the cabinet you can now see the light up marquee I'll give you a closer look so hopefully it doesn't bleed too much it looks really really good my only problem I'm having right now and I'm gonna resolve it at some other point is and get some light bleed in so you can see that down below I had to fix that I've actually had that problem before with Scott's marquee. I think he may have resolved that by now, but you could solve it by putting some tape, you know, black tape on the bottom or something like that. All right, so I want to revisit the control panel just real quick before we get into gameplay. These are Sanwa joysticks. So these are the ones that I decided to go with. I will have links in the description to these, but these are genuine Sanwas. The only thing that I changed is I put bat tops on them. These did not come with bad tops. They came with ball tops. Now, the problem that I had, and I'll explain this to you right now, is you maybe can't see this on the camera. I'm going to try to zoom in quickly. If you look, you can see that's the end of the actual shaft of the joystick. Well, you see there's a connector here. So what happened was because this is actually making the control panel a lot thicker than normal because of this acrylic top, I needed to extend the joystick. So they sell these Sanwa extenders which kind of bring the joystick up a little bit more if you have issues like this where mounting depths are deeper. So this actually brings the bat top up to a more comfortable level versus being so close to the control panel. So that's all you do and I'll show you that really quick. So if I unscrew this so if I take this off you can clearly see that and I scuffed it up a lot when I was mounting it so my bad. If you look close on there, you can see that's where that breaking point is, that extender piece right there. And then you just put the bat top on top of that. So that's how you do it. And it'll extend that out. Now there's one other bat top tip I wanted to give you guys real quick. So just bear with me a second. And I'm gonna bring something over that I think will help with those of you who are having some bat top issues. So give me one second here. Okay, so I'm back and this is a little tip here. Kind of random, but this Loctite right here, This thread locker is your friend when it comes to using these Sanwa extensions. So what you would do is, and I'm not going to do it for this because I'm going to have to take it apart a couple more times. But you put a little bit of the Loctite here. Screw this on.