The Dream of House Arcades Isn’t Useless, and Neither Is Arcade1Up

The pulsing gentle of the house arcade scene dimmed late final yr. Arcade1Up, one of many few firms that made proudly owning your individual basement filled with arcade classics a actuality, introduced in December it was promoting off most of its belongings to a separate firm. But the model isn’t almost as useless as initially feared. The new Arcade1Up has ambitions. One is to make extra arcade machines. Two, to make them higher and extra genuine than they ever had been earlier than.

Basic Fun!, the corporate that acquired Arcade1Up late final yr, isn’t the primary agency you consider for retro gaming. It’s principally identified for toy manufacturers like Lite Brite, Care Bears, Ok’nex, and Lincoln Logs, plus a fledgling model of miniature and large-scale arcade gadgets beneath the Arcade Classics identify. Basic Fun!’s digital advertising and marketing supervisor, Aaron Kredi, took Gizmodo by way of its current lineup of arcade machines and full-sized cupboards it had on show at Toy Fair 2026. He stated the brand new group behind these newest cupboards was making an attempt to implement new requirements. That ranged from further element for these cupboards, higher craftsmanship and high quality management, and a broader number of video games and franchises out there… finally.

Arcade1Up guarantees to take its time

Kredi wasn’t shy about detailing the acquired firm’s former failings. He identified the big uncovered screw holes buried into the facet panels of Arcade1Up’s older machines. Some of these cupboards additionally sported a Plexiglas layer on the controls to maintain customers from sloughing off the vinyl arcade art work with their grubby fingers. Basic Fun! as an alternative plans to make use of a rubberized panel artwork Kredi claims is a more in-depth approximation of the Eighties arcade cupboards.

Basic Fun! has additional ambitions to successfully revitalize the Arcade1Up identify—particularly as the emblem that can stay stenciled throughout all the firm’s tall cupboards. Kredi stated the corporate is contemplating redoing Arcade1Up’s claw machines. Those machines had been notoriously defective, with points stemming from the rubber O-ring within the claw mechanism all the way down to wiring issues and points inside the machines themselves. Kredi stated they’re contemplating reaching out to claw machine companions to seek out the place the largest manufacturers supply their elements.

“We’re a bigger company, and that means we don’t have to put out as many cabinets every month,” Kredi stated. With fewer cupboards, meaning the corporate can spend extra time with every system to make sure high quality management requirements, he stated.

Over the previous few years, Arcade1Up tried to entice extra clients with touchscreen board recreation tables and slot machines. Those don’t appear to be making a return with this present iteration. The first shock recreation from the corporate for 2026 is a group of the basic Sonic video games from the Sega Genesis. The XL-sized machine I received to check was not finalized. Basic Fun! stated it was contemplating completely different side-panel artwork, and Kredi claimed that they had not cemented the total recreation listing. Currently, the cupboard options Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2, Sonic 3D Blast, and Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. We’ll discover out if the machine manages to safe the third Sonic recreation nearer to launch this fall.

This isn’t the primary time Sonic has appeared in arcade kind. Sega introduced this recreation to the Mega-Tech systems. So as I sped by way of the primary Green Hill Zone, I discovered the arcade stick and tri-button controls didn’t really feel off-putting in comparison with the sport performed on a standard Genesis-style controller.

A cupboard constructed for the sweatiest wrestling followers

The different huge launch slated for this fall is a big four-player WrestleFest cupboard. It’s akin to the corporate’s current two-player cupboard from its Arcade Classics line, although with extra gamers, video games like WrestleFest, TremendousStars, and The Big Pro Wrestling! really feel further hectic once you’re sweating in shut confines with some beer-hawking buddies.

Both the Sonic and WrestleFest cupboards are a part of Basic Fun!’s “Supreme” line, that means they’ll value nearer to $650 in comparison with the smaller cupboards like Centipede at round $500. These cupboards must be out there in Sam’s Club places and from different huge field shops. One of these cheaper titles will embody a rendition of Ms. Pac-Man sporting a basic Japanese-style arcade stick. I additionally went hands-on with Basic Fun!’s current cupboards, just like the basic vector-based Star Wars Return of the Jedi. Based on my brief time with it, the recreation arcade machine had responsive controls with simply the correct amount of stiffness and responsiveness to make lining up photographs really feel exact.

When Basic Fun! acquired Arcade1Up, the corporate introduced over most of its belongings and a few, however not all, of that firm’s authentic workers, in line with Kredi. That doesn’t imply all of the licensing offers additionally transferred over. Basic Fun! has to renegotiate offers with the assorted stakeholders who nonetheless covet these basic arcade titles. Based on what Kredi informed Gizmodo, the corporate’s ambitions lie past the apparent properties like Pac-Man. The future might embody titles as infamous as the unique Dragon’s Lair, the 1983 Rick Dyer basic Simon Says story recreation sporting Don Bluth-made animations.

There’s nonetheless time between now and when Arcade1Up lastly releases these cupboards someday this fall. I loved what I managed to play in my transient time with every machine. What’s left is to see whether or not the arcade makers can observe by way of on their guarantees to maintain the beacon for retro arcade gaming lit within the close to future.