Walmart has
AtGames Legends Ultimate Home Arcade (HA8801) for
$499.
Shipping is free.
Alternatively,
Sam's Club has for
Members: AtGames Legends Ultimate Home Arcade (HA8801D) for
$499.98.
Shipping is free for
Sam's Club Plus Members.
Thanks to community member
timmiser for finding this deal.
Note: The models at Walmart and Sam's Club have different model numbers (HA8801 vs HA8801D). For the HA8801D Sam's Club members also receive 3 free months of ArcadNet and Pinball controls. Refer to the forum thread for additional details and discussion.
+ Free Shippingat Walmart
Top Comments
-My kids, 3, 5, 15 beat the crap out of it regularly and it stands up to the abuse.
-The trackball and spinners add extra fun to the overall experience.
-You can expand the system with addons like pinball buttons for virtual pinball, light guns, third party racing wheels and even a sweet LED marquee (the sign at the top of the cabinet) that cycles through different game titles.
-The software is super easy to use and you can even connect to your gaming PC on your local network and play Steam games on the cabinet. You can plug in different (modern) systems and play them with the controls, which are also Bluetooth.
-If you're tech savvy, you can add in thousands of extra games with a USB drive. (Google 'ALU Sauce')
-I've built my own custom arcade cabinets from scratch, and this is entirely worth the money. The build is solid, the cabinet graphics are very nice, the controls are decent quality and the control panel is well laid out and the software is plug and play. Sure, you can build one for $500, but the sweat equity (including figuring out your arcade front end) will cost you far more than $500 IMO.
-Yes, this was ~cheaper~ at Sam's in the past, so not even counting the membership fee for Sam's, if you're going to the past, please pick me up on the way so we can swing by 2011 and pick up some Bitcoin.
Awesome deal. With the current Arcade cabinet craze this won't get any cheaper unless it's a YMMV deal. If I had room, I would buy another because these get enough traffic at my house.
Legends Ultimate Arcade http://www.samsclub.co
Yes the QC could be a bit better--some of them do come with some cosmetic damage although I suspect much of it was probably incurred during transit/shipping. Post-delivery you want to look for loose connectors; if you find that some of the controls don't work then just open the control panel and make sure all of the connectors/cables are plugged in.
That would be the ArcadeNet subscription if you want to play any of their cloud-based games; there are two subscription levels--free and paid; more info about that can be found here:
ArcadeNet [atgames.net]
For those of you who are attempting to use their ALU for the very first time I highly suggest the following:
1) Perform a firmware update ASAP, especially since many of the features available or can be used on the ALU are not possible on the default firmware; also, I also highly recommend that you do the first update via Ethernet cable--if that's not possible then make sure that the wifi SSID you connect your ALU to does not contain any spaces in its name, as the default firmware has issues connecting to a wifi AP with such a SSID.
2) I highly recommend that you purchase the trackball shim kit, especially if the trackball is expected to see a lot of usage--the supports that hold the trackball in place tend to crack, thus leading to a trackball that no longer tracks correctly or not at all. Replacement trackball is $50, and that's when they even have it in stock. Link to shim kit is here:
Shim Kit [uplayarcade.com]
3) For those of you who may find the ALU still a bit too short for your liking, there is a third-party riser kit for it; eBay has them but I highly suggest buying it direct from Buy Stuff Store (they are Canada-based) since they (currently) offer free shipping to the U.S. for the riser and after currency conversion it comes out to ~$65; link for it is here:
ALU Riser [buystuffstore.ca]
4) Please do not buy the pre-loaded game ROM saUCEs from Etsy or eBay--it is not difficult at all to find these ROMs and load them onto your own USB drive/stick, plus you are doing a disservice to the folks who spent lots of time creating these saUCEs and willing offer them up for free. Even if you do elect to buy them you will soon discover that they may not work on your ALU right out of the box (especially if you elect to use the CoinOPSX app that is available on the ALU). I won't bother going into the ethical aspect of using ROMs in your ALU as I think everybody knows the deal when it comes to possession and usage of game ROMs.
5) I do not want to debate about the pros and cons of purchasing extended warranties; however, you do need to realize that the ALU comes with just a 30-day warranty, which makes buying the ALU from Sam's Club a wiser choice than buying it from Walmart since at least with Sam's Club you have 90 days to return it. The logic boards are around $20 each (there are two--one for the mainboard, the other for the control deck), but a bad trackball will set you back $50, bad pinball controls another $50, and who knows how much a replacement spinner will go for but given the cost of the trackball I would not be surprised that it'll cost $50 as well..and then there's the monitor. SquareTrade 3-year warranty is $80 ($50 if the coverage price doesn't include sales tax (it covers items from $400 to $499.99).
Note--the Walmart ALU does not include the pinball controls (a $50 value) as others have noted, nor does it include the free 3-month ArcadeNet Standard subscription ($60 value) that is offered only on the Sam's Club version--albeit you have until 3/15/21 to redeem it (this might be one of the reasons why the Sam's Club ALU is on clearance in some areas).
I am not a shill for AtGames or for any of the third-party products I mentioned above, just a happy ALU owner. Yes my ALU came with one minor issue--dead LEDs in the marquee, but AtGames did send me a new LED strip, and yes their support (only available via email--no online or phone support) can be hit or miss when it comes to responsiveness, but overall AtGames is not too bad a small company, given their product line.
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300 Comments
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Many preorders were shipped damaged and overall build quality was poor compared to the first release. Can't remember if it was on cheapassgamer or reddit but there's some extensive posts and photos out there.
If it's the right price for you, awesome. Sounds like some YMMV success.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVbkgkG
Many preorders were shipped damaged and overall build quality was poor compared to the first release. Can't remember if it was on cheapassgamer or reddit but there's some extensive posts and photos out there.
If it's the right price for you, awesome. Sounds like some YMMV success.
There were a few bad scalar boards, which the atgames replaced for free, though production delays made some people mad. It's a pandemic and new machines weren't shipping, so it's no surprise they didn't get mew scalar boards here.
It has been said their CS is slow, but posting on their Facebook page with problems gets a response within a day with email to fix.
I'm sorry, did that man just say "mew?"
I appreciate sharing the issues here to educate people and create realistic expectations. It's a giant mechanical device from a small company. There could be problems, but I've had two machines for near a year and I've never seen a company that does this much to improve a product I own.
They added a coinips feature for playing downloaded and backup games. Game changer. Literally, it allows you to change games with a usb drive.
This alone would make it worth 20 A1Ups. (More like 200, but they don't make that many).
Own this, a 4player cab (TMNT or NBA Jam), StarWars, vPin, and a racing cab and you've got everything. This covers 95% of the distance by itself.
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Prepare for a damaged product. The first damaged product I received in shipping had no protective cardboard or foam surrounding the unit. Fed ex in true fashion delivered it with a huge gaping hole on side in which you could see the broken and marred cabinet.
Second time the FedEx contract delivery driver... literally flipped the cabinet one handed out the back of the van. It cartwheeled across my driveway. Side note caught it all on camera and FedEx mngt dealt with her...
This second cabinet was very well packaged and survived the tumble. All pieces looked great and easy to assemble. I have one stuck pixel which shows bright pink for a while until a game finally flashes it away.
The main draw is CoinOpsX and they require you to sign in to their arcade net now. You can open the software five times before they force login again. This is worrisome because that could lock owners out if they shutdown for any reason. You can still do the BYOG feature but that requires building the mame package and very time consuming.
The wifi is not very good and receives a lot of complaints on Reddit. You'll most likely need to hardwire for initial updates. Also look at getting the trackball shim kit sold by a 3rd party that 3D prints them. Tons of trackball complaints in which the supported standoffs brittle plastic break with use. The shim kit reinforces this.. $10 including shipping.
All in all easily worth the $500 price tag. Yes there are some build quality downsides and software quirks but it does its job. However my last piece of advice would be to purchase an extended warranty. I got mine thru Sams. The Atgames warranty is only for 90 days...
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