In 2025, there will be plenty of options available to people who want legal access to retro games, including Evercade, Antstream, Nintendo Switch Online, and PS Plus. However, the team behind Recade is hoping there will be room for one more and is building "a platform dedicated to the arcade community and providing the space to reconnect those passionate players to the games and community they love."
Recade is an emulation box that goes under your TV and is powered by an as-yet-unnamed quad-core processor. It boasts dual-band WiFi and connects to your TV via HDMI, like any other modern-day console. It will ship with its own wireless controller, which features a six-button setup, eight-way D-pad, and a Hall effect analogue stick.
The unique selling point of Recade is that it will allow you to legally play '70s, '80s and '90s coin-op titles either locally or online, benefitting from features such as screen filters, voice chat, cloud saves and more. The idea is to sell the base unit cheaply and then support the platform's growth with a traditional subscription-based business model.
"We are designing our hardware with flexibility in mind," says Recade's Adam Daywalker. "Not all aspects are locked down just yet, but we are planning on a hybrid model to adjust to local vs online play smoothly."
Recade has been in development for a while now, and Daywalker reveals that, although funding hasn't been completely secured, the end is in sight. "We are still hard at work trying to make this dream happen. We have not been able to raise any money just yet, so we’ve kept our jobs and built on the side. Our focus right now is to build 10 alpha units to sell to prove our market. We are close to that goal now."
The plan is to launch Recade this year, assuming funding can be obtained. Recade is "currently building partnerships with publishers towards our goal of 50+ classic arcade games at launch" and says that "additional titles will be added to the library continuously after launch with no subscription increase."
As we've seen with Evercade and Antstream, IP holders are more than willing to license out their classic games for modern consumption—but it remains to be seen if Recade can offer the kind of audience such deals rely on.
As for the price, Recade says it is working with manufacturing partners "as well as game publishers" to come to a precise figure, but that's not available as yet. "We are aiming for an affordable price point for our console and a small monthly subscription fee to access the games library. Our plan has always been and continues to be keeping affordability a priority while not sacrificing quality," says the company.
If you're interested in the Recade project, sign up for updates here.
Comments 16
sounds cool but not for me im afraid.I don't believe in subscription models for things like games that are so old literally anyone can get a hold of them anywhere. By legal means or otherwise.
As far as im concerned if you own a copy of a game somewhere that should entitle you to it forever but yeah i know.... raisins.
Yes, more subscriptions please! Just what we need.
They will get NONE of my help.
> The idea is to sell the base unit cheaply and then support the platform's growth with a traditional subscription-based business model.
What's traditional about subscription models? A traditional model is "you buy a thing" and then "you have a thing". (Yes, I know it's technically just a license and not ownership)
This makes me slightly sad because I absolutely love arcade games to the point of having a JAMMA cab in my house and I would dearly love an arcade renaissance. I'm all for bringing games to a new audience too, but somehow this feels like a way of squeezing more money out of my nostalgia, rather than opening up these classics to a new generation.
Emulation is pretty much a necessary thing these days so I'm not against that, but I do think you need to go someway towards curating the releases or at least getting deals to provide official releases of some forgotten gems. Sticking some licensed ROMs on the internet and then slinging an emulation box to download and play them with existing emulators isn't hitting the spot for me.
Some interesting points in the article, the main one being that they haven't secured ANY funding yet. This either means that they're in the very, very early stages of development (if so, it's unlikely they'll release this year) or that no one is interested.
My initial thought is that they should team up with Antstream and have this as a dedicated Antstream Box but that seems unlikely to happen.
I feel like this is 2016/2017 all over again.
I'm not surprised at the negative reaction here to the subscription approach. It sounds like it would be similar to Antstream. I wonder if the games would be streamed or emulated locally.
For something like this, the emulators used and the options available matter a lot. Of course, the library would be very important. And that's where I think this would be a tough sell as there are a lot of ways to play the arcade games that are typically licensed out or released in collections. If they could get games that are typically not available due to their own licensing issues, then that would make it stand out. Maybe the subscription model makes that easier, but that remains to be seen. In such a case, you now have the same old modern issue of streaming where licenses can run out and games pulled from availability. I mentioned various collections like Capcom's and that's going to be some of the competition for a curated box like this and may be a better approach as the value would be better and would work on hardware people already have. That's why being able to get licensed games on this thing would be a big deal, but even then it might not be enough.
"Recade Wants To Be Netflix For Arcade Games, But It Needs Your Help"
they are welcome to try... without my help. 👍
This will 100% fail , rubbish.
The Netflix for Arcade Games...
So, Antstream then?
What is the USP of this? What does it do that I can't do with one other devices?
It doesn't seem to have a unique selling point at all!
"The unique selling point of Recade is that it will allow you to legally play '70s, '80s and '90s coin-op titles either locally or online, benefitting from features such as screen filters, voice chat, cloud saves and more. The idea is to sell the base unit cheaply and then support the platform's growth with a traditional subscription-based business model."
Surely Antstream already does this?
And Evercade if you don't want to follow a subsciption model?
They don't have any unique licences, and both AntStream and Evercade have way more beyond arcade and a good deep library.
This just seem too late to the party.
Arcade games from the 70s, 80s, and 90s definitely need that janky looking generic controller. I guess racing games could use an analogue joystick? If they were serious about this, there would be an arcade stick.
Don't we already have Antstream for this?
What's with the negativity? I mean a couple of comments about getting NONE of my help/without my help? Have I missed something? As far as it goes, I need to see more, and yeah, antstream/evercade have this sort of niche sewn up, so yeah, what's the angle?
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