Personal choice of course.
But for me, quality in the console space. Quantity in the arcade and pinball space.
Games are meant to be played.
In that vein and in both cases I focus first and foremost on games I hope to someday pull out of the backlog and give a try.
That said, as I’ve built my arcade, it really takes up a lot of space so I have had to think very carefully about how I fill it. I want more pins and cabs than I can physically fit.
Pins and cabs can also be ridiculously expensive and/or a lot of work to restore.
So I kind of cheat.
I have a VPin (pinball cab with a PC and Visual pinmame). While NOT the same thing as my physical tables, it allows me to have more tables than my house could ever hold and scratches the itch for tables I’m not committed to, just want to try, or can’t find/fit. I can also play some great tables that may never exist in real life... including a table design of my own that I am fiddling around with off and on.
For most of my arcade cabs, I bought cabs that have common control panel layouts (a gun cab, a 4p 2 button cab, a dual stick cab, a racing cab, a Sega Mega Play, and a Play Choice 10.
Then I worked with a guy that does high end custom jamma switchers and put as many boards in those cabs as could reasonably be supported. Even my Punch Out!! Cab is multi jamma switchable to Super Punch Out!!.
Effectively making the arcade much more populated than it appears.
I know I could technically get away with just the vpin and a mame cab.
But I like the feeling of a fully populated arcade with all my favorite games and life’s too short to settle for less than what you really want (in general, not just gaming).
Ones that have a special significance in my life got dedicated cabs/tables. Ones I enjoy but don’t really have a good personal story to go with them got slotted into an existing cab.