Waiting for the official product announcement thread, until then:
First, huge fan. I have bought both the Picade 2015 and 2020 and have spent countless hours tinkering, playing, and enjoying them.
I don’t have the money to invest in a beta unit, but I do have some questions and feedback
Questions
- When is the next mainline Picade coming?
- Is the back access panel on a hinge like the original Picade 2015 or held in with two feet and a rubber o-ring like the Picade 2020?
- Does Picade Max Power HAT have additional power out leads? 5V, 8V, etc.? Will there be leftover USB ports on the Raspberry Pi 5 after setup? Will 12V power supply be enough and then some for accessories/mods like storage, fans, external drives, lights, etc.?
- How are you handling rigidity? - May need some additional bracing at this size/weight. I’m thinking metal cross-braces to create rigidity and prevent it from “rhombus-ing”, like sway bars on a vehicle. Don’t know how to design this without it getting in the way of mounting on panels for board, monitor, etc.
Feedback
What I Like
- 19" (!) 5:4 ration LCD monitor
- STEREO
- Raspberry Pi 5 support
- PICO-8 license!
- Volume knob
- Including both 1-player and 2-player layout panels
- Art template (as before, but thank you!)
- Alternate marquee diffuser panel for LED/light setup
- Mounting holes for a fan
- Mounting holes for other boards (as before, but thank you!)
- Picade Max Power HAT with proper 12V power supply to power everything without risk of under-powering
- Picade Max USB controller board (with a ridiculous number of I/O and plasma support!)
OS/Software
- This is largely up to the customer/user, but in the past you require running scripts/installers to get the various boards/HATs working on RetroPie, so this is important to ensure day-one compatability:
- You recommend Recalbox which is closed-source and is more of a “product” where you have to donate to their Patreon to get “advanced” features
- I invariably believe Batocera is the superior choice, and I would hope this is supported out-of-the-box as well: Reddit topic on Batocera vs Recalbox, main Batocera website
- Good ol’ RetroPie support would still be welcome in absence of Batocera day-one, and in place of Recalbox, IMHO :)
- Please, please continue to provide source to the scripts etc. used to configure anything as needed to configure for other setups
Cabinet Design
- While convenient, the buttons on the side for controlling the monitor settings clutter up the cabinet design
- These are rarely, if ever, used on the original Picades
- Hotkey + joystick/buttons are useful for changing software dimming if brightness needs to be accessed quickly
- Would look better if this could be removed and the buttons remain accessible inside
Artwork
- Gotta be honest, not a fan
- Logo looks great
- “Player 1” and “Player 2” labels are clutter
- Red with blue historically has some harsh contrast effects and is worse for some than others: Chromostereopsis - Wikipedia
- Keep one color theme across the system, just like the galaxy effect of the Picade 2015 or the retro futurism effect of the Picade 2020
Buttons/Sticks
- Coloring per player is fine - but see red vs blue comment above
- If single colors are chosen per player, all actions buttons should be the same color - Having the black buttons above just doesn’t look as aesthetically pleasing
- Too many colors that don’t fit an aesthetic palette with stark contrast, 4 (blue, red, white black)
- There is a “mess” of buttons on the panel
- Densely packed on top row
- The quantity is high
- 7 for the action buttons is pushing it with the original 6 fitting 99.99% games in arcade-style, save for something like Street Fighter 4 or rhythm games
- There are 8 non-action buttons that I can see
- Having “Select/Coin” and “Start” for each player is necessary, so that’s 4 required
- I would argue at least 1 or 2 more needed for hotkey/etc.
- Mapping one as a hotkey in RetroPie/RetroArch works great for any other functions and this is done simply on both the existing Picades
- Picade 2015 has 6 non-action buttons (includes “Select/Coin” and “Start” for one player)
- Picade 2020 has 4 non-action buttons (includes “Select/Coin” and “Start” for one player)
- I can’t imagine why the extra 2 are necessary
- I would argue that non-action buttons should first be moved to the front and side panels of the cabinet and colored black to blend in, like the previous iterations. If action buttons are to be on the control panel itself, just have the “Start” ones, like many, many arcade cabinets do
- I would have something to say about using Sanwa or Seimitsu stick and buttons, but this is best left to customer to buy as they are highly preferential and would probably up the price of the kit about $30-$50
Thank you for reading!