Build A Cheap Arcade Cabinet With A Raspberry Pi 3 & RetroPie

The idea of nostalgia!

Welcome to my first ever Medium article.

I have always loved retro games and especially arcade games as my brothers and I would go to the shopping center every Saturday with our pocket money in hand and cue up to best anyone at Turtles In Time. Now that time has gone by and I am in my late 30s I still have a longing for that old school feeling, and more importantly share it with my children.

I ordered the new Raspberry Pi 3b+ a few days ago, and it’s been sitting on my desk pretty much ever since waiting for an idea, (This guide will work with the newer Raspberry Pi 4 also). I had some vague ideas about using it with RetroPie to be the brains in some sort of arcade machine. But what sort of arcade machine would that be?

Then I came across the iCade cabinet and thought about using it as the basis for a little Raspberry Pi-based arcade cabinet. If you’re not aware of the iCade, it’s a cabinet that accepts and pares with your iPad using Bluetooth, and allows you to play supported games using the built in arcade stick and buttons.