With all the DIY arcades out there like the Powerbook arcade or the Metroid themed MAME cabinet, you’d be crazy not to take a crack at building your own. Now if you just so happen to be rich, you won’t mind living by the motto, “can’t someone else do it?” Yes, someone else can do it and that someone is Zombie Arcades, a high-end arcade machines manufacturer based in the UK. These cabinets are are built from the ground up and designed for home use to bring back that classic arcade gaming experience you can only find if you traveled back to the ’80’s.

Each unit comes chock full with over 300 of the greatest arcade games from the past and present. With a 24″ Samsung LCD and two player arcade controls (with LED buttons), you must be wondering about the price. I hope you’re sitting down because these gaming rigs don’t go for anything shy of $4,400. Yowza. Time to put the house on a second mortgage.

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Who would’ve thought an old Apple Powerbook and a trip to IKEA would be all it takes to create a sweet home arcade. Frederic Sebton took apart his old Powerbook and mounted the monitor and guts inside an IKEA side table, with the screen showing up through a hole cut out of the top of the table. After mounting an arcade style joystick in the cabinet’s drawer,  Sebton created a fun-filled MAME cabinet.

He provides his own step-by-step instructions on his approach to crafting your very own MAME cabinet to entertain yourself and your guests.  Just dig up your old laptop you never use, shove it inside a wooden cabinet and voila! Gaming goodness for the whole family.

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This DIY MAME cabinet is the kind of arcade system you always dreamed of having as a kid.  John Keeler has crafted this work of art and while doing so, was kind enough to throw together a HOWTO so you can build your own.

Aside from some of the neat stuff thrown into this thing, such as two NES, two SNES and 2 Adaptoid adapters built in to the front of the unit for easy retro controller support, the arcade has a custom built-in “Mother Brain” as tribute to Metroid.  Using polymer clay, Keeler crafted two halves of the brain and fit them inside a plexiglass case that lies behind the monitor. It’s as if Mother Brain herself were powering this machine of Metroid glory.

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An eco-friendly moon that’s painted on an average cabinet; it’s sure to keep its owner awake all through the night. In the dark, the cabinet creates an illuminating effect that tries to mimic moonlight. Though you can’t grow space beer on it, you can still put your clothes in it.

The picture makes the glow look a little too intense for my tastes, so I ask the question: where’s the on/off switch? Ah hell, you can always throw a drape over it.

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This cabinet is definitely the wrong thing to buy if you have small children. Why? Because it will teach them that by sticking their arms into sockets, they can find something hidden inside. Not the greatest thing to be teaching toddlers. Now if you don’t have small ones, this is a pretty cool type of gag furniture. The idea remains that sticking your arms in a socket gets you something, but now that you are over the “fork-in-socket” stage, you can have a good laugh at the idea of flying across a room (just forget the pain associated). The price for this humorous gift is $180. Pretty steep. –Nik Gomez

Electrical Outlet Closet; Put Your Hand In The Socket [via Uber-Review]

Everyone is buying big LCD TVs these days, and many want to go the whole 9 yards with a new sound system that complements their TV. The only problem is that if you want to complement a new TV, you have to go with surround sound, and that means speakers all over your living room. Until now that is. ZVOX just came out with the ultimate sound system for just about anywhere. The ZVOX 325 is a whole surround sound system packed into a single cabinet. Not only does it act as an adequate surround sound system, it is also said to have excellent bass, so when you watch those intense action movies you’ll think your house is being bombed. The sleek design of the single cabinet will complement any new LCD TV, and a plus is that it comes in either silver or black, so it’ll match any TV. One of the biggest shockers is the price: $350. How did ZVOX manage to build a sound system that’s on par with higher-end ones, put into a single cabinet, and have such a low price? That’ll be a mystery for a while, so for now let’s just stare at the 325 in awe. — Nick Rice

ZVOX 325 [via SlashGear]

Take a good look at that picture. Let it all soak in. Mmm yeah, that’s good. This homemade rack (which you too can create with enough time) has a DVD player, a cable box, a PS3, an XBox 360, a Wii, an XBox, and a TiVo shelved down its center. It even has a custom LED computer cooling fan on each side of every device, resembling the blue lit Antec Nine Hundred Gamer PC Case. Talk about parking yourself in front of an optimal gaming rig, and we thought some other rigs were ultimate nooks ! Each device also has its very own stand with an open vented bottom so that it can radiate heat from all sides. Every controller has its own rack so as not to get tangled up into an impossible knot with the rest of the wiring. Though probably not its intended purpose, the subwoofer even functions as a Guitar Hero guitar stand for an all-encompassing gamer case. And they say gaming isn’t an addiction.

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