Novotable offers ergonomically-questionable retro, PC, and console gaming

We're pretty sure you don't see many tabletop arcade games around anymore for a reason -- mainly, it's not very comfortable to hunch over a screen for more than few minutes. Luckily for us, our poor PacMan and Centipede skills (and perpetual lack of quarters) made this mostly a non-issue in our arcade-trolling days, but now a new product called the "Novo Infotainment Table" (or Novotable for short) is offering to bring spine-curving videogame action for yesterday's hits and today's PC and console titles right to our homes. The Novotable is basically a 32-inch LCD mounted horizontally onto an articulating stand, attached to a pair of arcade joysticks, and stuffed with a subwoofer, Shuttle PC, and your choice of PS2 or Xbox. You also get a a stainless steel keyboard to swap out the controllers in case you want to use your multi-thousand dollar device (actual price: unknown, but presumed high) for something other than playing the biggest pixelated hits of the 80's, plus the usual lineup of PC features that you'd expect to find on a Shuttle, such as WiFi, Bluetooth, and FireWire and USB ports. We could see installing a few of these in a bar for some drunken Rampage fun, but the Mansion gameroom only accepts original pinball and arcade cabinets, so no Novotable for us, thanks.

[Via Joystiq]

[Alexandre Donzel @ Apr 9th 2006 11:46AM]

eek! thats one ugly POS. gr8 for playing fm ur couch...
if u seriously think this is worth it:
1)ur too stupid to know
2) or uve got WAY too much money to spend
And besides, PS2, XBox? wheres the 360, come ON!

and erm, yay! first com

[Dan @ Apr 9th 2006 12:25PM]

That's pretty wicked cool, but UUUUUGGGGLLLLYYYYY

[Mr Norris @ Apr 9th 2006 1:02PM]

Great, the childish "ugly" chant has begun already. ;)

If you think this is ugly, you likely weren't old enough in the 80's to appreciate these things... I'm just messing with you, but who really cares how it looks, as this is definitely a niche machine... and you've got to be as rich as "Kanye Christ" to own one.

Gimme an old pinball machine any day.

[YourNameHere @ Apr 9th 2006 1:05PM]

The Shuttle PC has Windows on it so that I can play Microsoft 3D Pinball, Space Cadet, for Windows, right? It has the pinball knob for it! Or at least I'm assuming that's what that silver nob on the right is.

[DMills @ Apr 9th 2006 1:26PM]

Donzel, please don't be lazy around here.

[Rick @ Apr 9th 2006 7:19PM]

I dunno about you but for me, 2/3 of the nostalgic value lies in the cabinet itself. Playing old arcade games on this thing just doesn't get me excited.

[Greg @ Apr 9th 2006 7:36PM]

ergonimic?

[yuppicide @ Apr 10th 2006 9:39AM]

There is a similar device that plays pinball games. Does anyone know the website?! I've seen it years ago and can't seem to find it again.

It had flipper buttons on the side and allowed you to download pinball machines from the web from that emulator.

[Onie @ Apr 10th 2006 9:47AM]

Finally! Something I can use to get my MAME groove on...

[RedWolf @ Apr 11th 2006 12:46AM]

There's nothing childish about calling it like it is.

Yes; it's hideous.

[Terry @ Apr 11th 2006 9:45AM]

That is awesome. I love the retro "starcade" styling. Haters can step off.

And tabletop games were awesome! You can set food and drink on them! Just tantalizing inches from your controller hand!