¾ scale Arcade1UP home cabinets keep steadily improving with light-up marquees, matching risers, better hardware, more accurate cabinet reproduction … even WIFI-supported multiplayer! I’ve been tempted for a while, and late last fall I relented and ordered the QVC edition of the Ms. Pac-Man cab.
It has the best mix of three additional games, as least for me: Pac-Mania, Super Pac-Man and Dig Dug (NO Galaxian, thank you very much!) I did replace the kickplate art with some vinyl from Arcade Graphix. It’s such an iconic design that I wanted to complete the look.
Anyway, these things are great, I’ve since ordered Outrun and I’m out of control! I’ve got the bug, and while I am not getting more any time soon, I am very curious about their 2021 plans. Arcade1UP is likely to have some announcements at Winter CES next week, so it seems a perfect time to speculate. I did some digging on the internet and found three rumors that seem semi-legitimate.
Here they are in order of plausibility:
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More Konami Cabinets
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Revisiting Earlier Atari releases, specifically Tempest
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TRON!
So, more Konami, in my mind, means more 4-player beat ‘em ups. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, paired with its sequel Turtles in Time, seems to have been well received by fans, which leaves two remaining heavy hitters: The Simpsons Arcade Game and X-Men. I can see both of these coming out with different additional games, and maybe even the deluxe 6-player version of X-men would get a pricy limited edition for superfans. Of the two, The Simpsons game would be the most tempting to me, as I am much more interested in revisiting the bizarre mashup of Konami and early Simpsons. If they threw in the lesser-known Sunset Riders, it would be very tempting!
Regarding Atari, many of their games got the ¾ cab treatment early on, but being part of the earlier waves, corners were cut to keep prices down. There was an Asteroids cab focusing on vector titles, and a Centipede cab focusing on trackball games, then a 12-in-1 unit essentially combining the two. Looking at the Asteroids and Centipede 8-in-1 PartyCades that recently came out, Tastemakers could easily re-release these in ¾ cab size with 8 games, light-up marquees and a nice weighted-spinner for Tempest and call it day. But what if they picked different cabinets for the marquee titles? Tempest and Crystal Castles cabs would both look great.
And then there is TRON, the legendary classic title with joystick AND spinner control. It’s a beautiful cab, and if they could do it justice, I think a lot of classic arcade fans would be very happy. Discs of TRON is the obvious add, but longshots GORF and Satan’s Hollow utilized the same trigger joystick. On this one I am torn. Having recently replayed TRON, both on XBLA and on the actual cabinet via Disney World, the IDEA of TRON is better than the reality of TRON, at least for me.
As a bonus, here are two ideas I think would be really cool, but I’m just daydreaming. No rumors here, just wishes.
Q*bert would be a nice add to their pre-crash line-up with its unique diagonal control stick. It could easily be paired with Q*bert’s Qubes. I love these two games, and a cab would be very tempting. It would be wild if they included the pinball knocker!
3-player Super Sprint is one of my favorite arcade games, and yet, without the free-spinning steering wheels, it’s not quite the same. This could easily be paired with the other popular 3-player racer Super Off Road, or even 2-player racers like Championship Sprint and Badlands. If adding a single player game would not be out of place, Atari’s A.P.B. could also be included!
Well, that’s my two bits from the peanut gallery. Hopefully we’ll get some new info next week!
Cheers,
Ben
