The arcade maybe dead but cabinet games live on through makers and game emulators.

You get huge, magnificent builds, and then you get this: a full arcade cabinet that measures in at just 6.72 centimetres.

This build comes to us from maker store and resource Adafruit. The base of the creation is the Raspberry Pi Zero and, despite the tiny size of that board, we think it’s actually the limiting factor here.

If you look at the back of the build in the header image, you’ll see that the entire back side of the cabinet is just the bare board.

Despite the creators of this project continually saying that they’re sure someone will come and make something smaller, they’ll need to get something even tinier than a Pi Zero to get everything running.

Other hardware includes a 0.96″ RGB OLED to display the games, an audio amplifier for sound and a collection of buttons and sundry items.

The software is the venerable MAME emulation suite which you’ll see running games on cabinets large and (very) small.

If, at this point, yor’re doubtful that this is a working cabinet, check out the video below:

https://vine.co/v/5JLgPiEYQ6V

Despite the creators of this project continually stating that this is impractical and a “weekend hacking session which, to be honest, was a lot of trouble to build and only marginally fun to play”, they have compiled a build guide which you can follow to make your own.

Heed their warnings and keep in mind that you won’t be able to do any serious gaming. That being said, this may be the best prank gift we can think of.

Finally, while Guinness World Records hasn’t officiated this and declared it a world record, we really don’t think anything smaller exists right now.

[Source – Adafruit]