Reports Suggest Arcade1Up Is Shutting Down

That’s really too bad. While novel (I definitely have no space for em, anyhoo), they played nicely. CAPCOM ones were fun for a quick go.

Not really surprised, once they basically stopped doing any new games or anything interesting with their line-ups, not to mention their extreme prices they made them in later years, which does suck since they were the reason a lot of older games were able to get re-released in so long, but I think companies are realizing that most people just want to play them on modern systems, along side Arcade1Up diminishing in quality and relavence, and yeah it's not surprising they might be closing.

That’s too bad, they really improved their product line over the years. I just wish that they had released a proper deluxe Ms Pac Man cabinet (i.e. one that looked like the original cabinet).

I'm curious how much was lack of demand vs other factors. The ones I've played over the years at various establishments were fine for what they were. Just couldn't justify owning one myself. If they had taken more of a multi system approach....buy one cab and then be able to swap out games / control surfaces / marquees that would have been more enticing for home use.

I haven’t bought anything from them in a number of years, but I still love the work that they do. This is a real shame.

From a consumer aspect, I think their biggest problem is that most customers only have room in their homes for one, maybe two arcade machines (not counting collectors). That kind of fits them in the large appliance space which means they need a constant influx of new customers, or planned obsolescence. Unfortunately, the home arcade space is a niche market so it’s unlikely they’d see a continuous flux of new customers, especially when the prime demographic is older millennials and above.

I think what would have helped them would be to sell various styled cabinets and the actual arcade game with control deck separately. Something of a hybrid between arcade cabinet and home console. Want to play a different game? You don’t need a whole new cabinet taking up more of your limited living space. Just undock the control deck and dock in the new one. Blam, new arcade. If you don’t like your cabinet design, you can always buy a different one and your existing control decks would still work (in theory).

They could even go the extra mile and give their detachable control decks an HDMI out so you can plug them in to a television like those ∞-in-1 consoles.

I hope this rumor isn't true, but I'm not surprised if it is. There's a finite limit to the different arcade machines that will sell enough to turn a profit, but at the same time you can't just keep selling Pac-Man and Galaga machines. Eventually most everyone who's interested in having one will and expanding that market gets very difficult.

@Xarathion I have a Legends Ultimate arcade machine from AtGames, and that's sort of, but not exactly, the approach they've taken.

A month ago, I decided we should use our Arcade1ups as a backdrop to our Christmas tree this year. I thought it was kinda neat.

https://imgur.com/a/yBp9w0E

Just sucks I might not get to do a bigger version of this in the future.