Retro games are a big business. Whether it’s high-end, high-priced retro handheld devices or mini arcade cabinets, there are large audiences and mints made by companies willing to stir our nostalgia-one of the market leaders is now taking things to the next level.
Announced at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that copy arcade creators Arcade 1Up With their first “Pro Series” arcade game console, their product line is taken to the next level-full-size, full-fat cabinet games for real hardcore players.
This new product line is not a substitute for the existing Arcade1Up product, which has now sold nearly 3 million units, but is the new pillar of the company’s product line. It joins the traditional Arcade1Up machine (smaller three-quarter-sized cabinet entertainment), Junior series (even smaller children’s cabinet), Infinity Game Table (electronic tabletop that can play digital board games) and electronic pinball machine .
The first Pro series machine officially launched is a re-creation of the classic Killer Instinct cabinet from the 90s. The Pro cabinet is full-size, equipped with a 19-inch screen, an overall appearance improvement, and SuzoHapp button, a common component brand in the original arcade cabinet at the time, which is a huge improvement compared to the universal buttons and joysticks in the standard A1U machine. The Killer Instinct cabinet has KI, KI2, Battletoads Arcade, and 8-bit and 16-bit versions of Battletoads. More Pro series machines will be launched in 2022.
Three new three-quarter size cabinets were also announced at CES, each of which is based on three companies. One is Bandai-Namco, which contains 14 games from the publisher’s stables, including Pac-Man. The Midway cabinet is led by Mortal Kombat, but there are 14 games in total, while the Atari cabinet is led by Cetipede, and there are 14 games in total. We have seen these publisher “Legacy” cabinets of Arcade1Up before, but these new versions of 2022 each have two games.
Tastemakers, LLC, Arcade1Up’s parent company, continued to perform well and quickly became a leading brand in the home gaming console field. Ordinary iGamesNews readers will know that I am a bit arcade fanatic and have a few original cabinets of my own-but Arcade1Up is for those who want to be in their game room in the 80s or 90s.
According to GameSpot, the retail price of the new “Pro Series” cabinets is expected to be around US$1,000 per unit. This makes it an interesting category-as for that price, you can of course build an original simulation-driven cabinet with a Raspberry Pi or something similar-and it’s even not far from the cost of buying the original machine. However, it started to become a complicated equation-as if the original cabinets might be of higher quality (after all, they were designed to survive arcade abuse), but they brought high ongoing maintenance and delivery costs .
Despite the severe damage caused by supply chain issues, 2021 will be another interesting year for the home arcade world, with many new products and new developments. I will pay close attention to the development of the coming year-I might even pick up one of these full-size cabinets to check the build quality. If I do, I will report. If I get it, please don’t tell my partner.