MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: Are these real dedicated cabinets?

> I pointed out that weird (most likely) dedicated The Simpsons cabinet a few weeks
> ago... well, here are a couple others that I found intriguing. You think they are
> official dedicated cabinets?

There's a strong chance that they are official - wall-mounted cabinets were very common in some countries. I seem to recall seeing quite a few of them in Germany, for example.

The US was in some ways unusual in that much (if not the majority) of the cabinet manufacturing was handled directly by the game manufacturers. In other countries, it wasn't uncommon for this to be contracted out to third parties, often with some connection to the larger distributors. Essentially, game manufacturers would supply the boards, another company would make the cabinets, and either the distributors themselves or another company would combine the two into a functional game.

This was usually done to keep costs down: importing a complete game from another country could have made it unsaleable once the costs of local import duties, etc. were factored in - but bringing in the individual components and having the woodworking and assembly done locally was a way to keep prices reasonable.

Of course, it also meant that the local cabinet manufacturer may not be building a cabinet that exactly matched the ones being made by the game manufacturer in another territory. Zaccaria's games are a good example of this.