NEW New 4-6 player CoinUps coming soon!

ajcrm125

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Due to the frustrations of having to physically coinup my 6 player X-man every time I want to play (grrrr), I decided to spin a new version of the CoinUp. One that will support up to 6 players total. :D

Working title for this product as of right now is the CoinUp-6UP and it will support will support 2 modes:

Classic mode:
This mode is for games that have independent player start buttons. You press the start button, the CoinUp coins up that player and then starts the game.
Each player is completely independent which means players can jump-in on an ongoing game at any time.

Fixed Character Mode:
This is for games that have no player start buttons (X-men, TMNT, Simpsons, etc), and each character has its own dedicated coin switch which dictates which character you play.
In this mode the user chooses an action button to coinup the game (Punch for example). When pressed, the device will coinup that player and then start monitoring the action button. As long as that player is playing (hitting the button occasionally) the CoinUp goes idle. But once the CoinUp sees that the button hasn't been pressed in a long period of time (configurable via dip switches) it wakes up again and will coinup the game if the action button is pressed.

Cool Feature... You guys decide how many credits you want the device to give you… and that's all you get. ;)

Griffin and I had a long discussion about this and I've also heard countless stories from fellow collectors who like me, get their grail home, sent in 100 credits, beat the game and all nostalgia was lost. With this feature you can push yourself to see how far you can go on a limited # of credits, or make it feel more 'Arcade like'. For example, set it to 3 credits and set the timeout to be longer than the "continue?" prompt so that once the game starts you only get 3 credits and that's it.

Of course you can essentially bypass this feature by setting the timeout to be slightly smaller than the continue prompt, and press the action button right before it times out.

Questions for you guys:
What's the max # of credits you see yourself needing to be sent by the CoinUp when you start a game? Many of these 4-6 player games already have DIP switches on the PCB or in-game menus that allow you to specify how many lives to give you per-credit. So I'm guessing I don't need to support a large number of CoinUp pulses.

What kind of timeout range do you guys need? I've been looking at the Konami titles and all appear to be in the 20 sec range. Any others titles I should be aware of?
 
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Yeah I've actually got a lot of business from barcades that don't like this approach because people always leave credits on the machines.
 
Love this idea. I have a Coinup on my Kung Fu Master and no kid hits the 1 player start button once, so there is always a credit in the game with no attract. This is the worse game with a credit as it goes to a black screen with small white letters saying to "press start".
 
I REALLY could have used this a few weeks ago at 2D Con, where I had The Simpsons on location for free-play use. :D

I'd say 10 credits is probably plenty. Most games that would use this have credit multiplier dip switches.
 
I believe you used to sell these for 1P games too, right? Could I use this on my Punch Out? I don't leave it on free play mode because it stays on a static Press Start screen if I do.

I will need this 4P version for when I get my TMNT cab, so count me in regardless. :)
 
I believe you used to sell these for 1P games too, right? Could I use this on my Punch Out? I don't leave it on free play mode because it stays on a static Press Start screen if I do.

I will need this 4P version for when I get my TMNT cab, so count me in regardless. :)

DogP released free play ROMs for TMNT and Simpsons
 
Make it so that when everything has been idle for a while, it will simulate the player one start button has been pressed and continue to do this every once in a while until game is played again or turned off. I was constantly getting games sitting on the static press start screens because someone pressed a player one or two button during gameplay, thus adding unused credits.
 
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