@domodan Although not as big as your 60" screen plan, my cabinet is a functioning 4-player design that plays all of the classic arcade games plus some consoles that interested me from when I was a kid (Atari 2600, NES, SNES). Check the link in my signature for details about my project.
As you are probably concluding, you can get away with playing most of the older consoles using arcade controls, provided you have enough buttons. For me, that was six action buttons for players 1 and 2, and four buttons for players 3 and 4, not counting coin and start which double as select and start for consoles.
I am looking forward to seeing more details about your project, as we seem closely aligned in terms of what you want to play--the only difference being maybe that I wanted some portability and the ability to play vertical games from the short sides of my cabinet so the image can fill the display.
