A collaboration to bring you the ultimate PCB setup reaches its fruition!
Arcade Shock, Jasen’s Customs, and Brook Gaming have joined forces to bring you the means to build near-total console compatibility to a single controller: the new Brook Retro Board.
While there are other retro PCBs on the market — such as the Toodle’s MC Cthulhu, or discontinued models like the Akishop’s PS360+ — Arcade Shock wanted players to have access to a rock-solid PCB that would allow compatibility with a wide variety of systems. The Brook Retro Board can be used with the following platforms:
- Nintendo Entertainment System
- Super Nintendo Entertainment System
- Nintendo GameCube
- Xbox
- Sega Saturn
- Sega Dreamcast
- TurboGrafx-16
- PlayStation
- PlayStation 2
- PlayStation 3
Pairing the Retro Board with Brook’s Universal Fighting Board can offer compatibility with every major gaming console, both old and current-generation. Details follow from Arcade Shock.
With Brook’s expertise in manufacturing and product support, we asked them to work with us and Jasen’s Customs to develop a board that is extremely simple to install, update, and — most importantly — work seamlessly with their Universal Fighting Board. With current methods, it’s possible to use two boards in a single arcade stick; however, they require increased cost and time to mod (labor: 90 minutes or more, for the seasoned modder), two separate cables, a hard switch, or other PCB switching circuits.
With the new Brook Retro Board, a 20-pin Multiplier Board designed by Jasen’s Customs, and included cables, you will be able to toggle between this board and the Brook UFB with a button combo; all of these functions are programmed into the Retro Board’s software, and with no extra hardware required! Using a RJ45 common output, you can use existing products on the market — such as Akishop’s RJ45 to USB, RJ45 to Sega Dreamcast and RJ45 to PS1/PS2 cables. Furthermore, we are in the process of developing NES, SNES, GameCube, and Sega Saturn cables that will use the common RJ45 jack, which has never been offered on a commercial basis.
There will be a few variations of the Brook Retro Board to make installation a snap:
- Solo, using just the Retro Board by itself, offered by both Arcade Shock and Jasen’s Customs
- Side-by-Side, good for most arcade sticks, offered by Arcade Shock
- Stacked, designed by Jasen’s Customs for the Panzer Fight Stick featuring drop-in EZ BUILD installation, offered by Jasen’s Customs
- Stacked for generic/other commercial arcade sticks, offered by Arcade Shock. This setup takes up less surface area if mounted on a flat surface. (More tests will be required for a complete list of compatible arcade stick shells.)
Product Overview / Benefits:
Dual Mod Support
- Combine with the Brook UFB in 2 configurations – either side-by-side with the 20-pin Multiplier, or a custom stacked variant.
- Use a single cable out and toggle between the Brook UFB or the Brook Retro Board using a simple button combination on plug-in. Other retro boards on the market require two separate cables, a hard switch, soldering wires to the PCB, or another PCB switching circuit to accomplish this — at increased costs, mod time, and clutter.
Upgradeable Firmware
- With Brook’s amazing customer support, if an update is needed, it can be easily done. Brook backs you up!
Effortless Installation
- Continuing our philosophy, we made sure that installation for the Brook Retro is as easy as the Brook UFB by pre-soldering the main connectors beforehand, saving you time to work on other parts of your mod.
Zero Lag
- When the Brook UFB was in production, the main thing emphasized was response time. A slow board is the difference between victory or loss. A laggy board has no place in today’s FGC. We wanted super low numbers, less latency (lag); from Arcade Shock’s tests, it’s zero. It doesn’t get any better than this.
The Brook Retro Board will be exclusive to Arcade Shock and Jasen’s Customs, and will soft-launch at Evo 2018; check out Arcade Shock and Jasen’s Customs to order online for late August 2018 shipping.
Source: Arcade Shock [press release]