arcade

arcade 1up

How long has it been since you’ve seen an actual arcade game?  I mean the cabinet style arcade game.  I’m sure, there are a lot of people out there who have these as part of their private collections, but I’m talking about seeing these in the wild.  The good news is that Arcade 1Up is trying to fill the void when it comes to finding these classic machines.  Albeit, their version is a bit smaller, but it will still satisfy your thirst for arcade games.  The Arcade 1Up cabinets are about 80% the size of a regular arcade cabinet.  This will make it easier to get them into your home arcade if you are a collector. There are currently four different cabinets up for pre-order, each boasting 3-4 different titles loaded onto them:

Rampage

  • Rampage
  • Gauntlet
  • Joust
  • Defender

Centipede

  • Centipede
  • Crystal Castles
  • Missle Command
  • Atari Millipede

Asteroids

  • Asteroids
  • Tempest
  • Major Havoc
  • Lunar Lander

Street Fighter

  • Street Fighter II Champion Edition
  • Street Fighter II Turbo
  • Street Fighter II The New Challengers

The machines weigh approximately 60 pounds, which means they can be easily moved from room to room.  Yes, there is some assembly required, but Arcade 1Up says the machines can be put together in under 45 minutes.  These machines don’t require you to insert coins, which would be a great addition, and give it an authentic feel.  But they’re still pretty cool, nonetheless.

The cabinets are set to release on September 25th, 2018, and pre-orders are currently available from GameStop for $399, though at the time of this writing, Walmart has the Street Fighter cabinet listed for pre-order at just $299. Considering an authentic cabinet will frequently drain a bank account a few thousand dollars, this price tag is pretty fair – it’s the same cost as a PS4 Pro and $100 less than an Xbox One X. Typically, you’d have to spend thousands on buying and maintaining an original arcade cabinet, or put a ton of work into building your own emulated facsimile.

In the past, I’ve written a lot about the nostalgia factor.  This is something that people don’t seem to give a lot of credence to.  But it plays a huge factor in people’s decisions.  We all want to be able to go back to an “easier” time in our lives.  Or maybe it just seemed easier because our parents did everything for us – cooked for us, made sure we went to bed on time and did our homework.  We didn’t have to worry about money, or paying the rent on time.  And, if you’re around my age, then a large part of our childhood was video games.  Which games you played depended on a few things, but ultimately we can all relate to having one or two favorites.

Which is why it’s no surprise to see retro video games making a comeback.  Street Fighter II was incredibly popular when I was a certain age, so its people of my generation who are more likely to pick up that game, and then share it with their kids.  Or have some of their friends over for a retro game night. We’ve seen this resurgence with Super Mario as well as Zelda.  I think that the gaming folks are missing out if they don’t cash in on these opportunities now.

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