Shaw_Brothers

@KingMike fair point also, but that was touch and go for a good while. Still, no need to be a beta tester with these things - just means a longer wait for a better guarantee

@WhensDinner I see what your saying, and agreed the ouya kinda came out. Will this however? I would love it too, but let's see. No advantage In going in early as if it sells well we won't have a problem.

Weird so basically they are saying "we know you think this is vapourware but wait until the end of September". September arrives and it will be "wait for the new year". So for me, they are actually proving out what they are trying to disprove.

Maybe I'm just cynical, the last vapourware one I went for was the ouya, I really don't want to repeat that again!

The "we need revenue at time extension - so let's post 100 affiliate links" page. Kudos for trying, but I would have preferred a more honed in list and under £50

I had worms on the pc, although I owned an amega at the time. I spent quite a few hours with the inbuilt sound editor, which allowed you to sample audio and assign them to an audio pack, which you could then use in the game. We had "gangsters" recorded from a variety of tapes of good fellas etc, with a phono to 3.5m cable straight into a creative labs sound card. Every time I watch those films I still recognise the sample we used for that audio set, from what must be about 30 years ago ish. Very sad, but when your young you have time on your hands! Shame the internet wasn't a thing back then as sharing these samples would have been pretty cool

@firenze this is correct. The psx version missed lots of frames and had slow loading times and was just generally pants. It didn't have the same vibe as the arcade and I couldn't wait for the Dreamcast version which gave us arcade perfect (this was at the same time as cps2/3 emulation was just capturing the ROMs and handling the issues like the kill switch etc). About 2 years after the Dreamcast version emulation kicked it's arse, but for me the best home versions of any of this era of fighting games was the Dreamcast, coupled with the arcade stick and it was wicked.

@nomither6 Xbox was bleeding edge in that generation. GameCube did have remarkably decent graphics but Xbox had the raw power and much more detailed gfx (take a look at dead or alive 3 Vs soul Caliber on the GameCube). My point was that the N64 was a massive step gfx wise than anything before it, and it came out in 1997 2 years after the playstation (both UK dates).

The N64, when released, was simply outstanding. Playstation looked basic slow and fuzzy Vs super mario 64 which looked amazing at the time. Star fox and mario kart with their pre-rendered textures made it look a bit lessor, but overall it was quality over quantity Vs others. However the Saturn had amazing 2d performance only vested by the Dreamcast later on. Ps1 obviously had the main support and years of it too, as well as hundreds of quality games. They were indeed right that while the Saturn was out that the 32x and mega cd (and tbh the mega drive also) was too much for anyone.

The N64 was the last attempt for Nintendo to be cutting edge, ever since then they have been about 2-4years (or more) behind others. However, I still think the have it right longer term - lots of games that take a few years to produce with short sharp return Vs 1 game that takes 10 years or more for a 90hour game. Overall I would hope the short games win.
One brilliant thing about Nintendo - if you buy a game, you get all of it. Most games don't have DLC and the ones that do come with the annual pass which is cheap in comparison. Fingers crossed they keep that going with the Switch P

I think I'm now at the point that I'm too old to play something this small. Besides, the support on these generally runs for a year max then they upgrade the hardware with the next one.

I would recommend you save you're money and buy a steam deck.

@GeneJacket ah thanks for that, makes more sense. Still, they could do a little bit more!

I'm not sure that's going to add confidence in the new film based on that..... I mean, I could spend an hour with Photoshop doing that. Tempted to actually try just to prove my point!

Seriously its not that good is it?

Reminds me a bit of marvel super heros - tis great.

Ayaneo - what's the support for these sort of devices? They seem to release many each year and therefore is support about 2 years tops?

Well thats Minecraft Vs starfox if I ever saw it! What such low FPS... Wow

Anyone else remember tetranet? It's what introduced me to Google in 1999, basically Google was easy to download files like this because it was the only search engine at the time where you could search file names and get back links, whereas altavista and yahoo didn't. Tetranet was brilliant when you had 6 people - was a bit like puyo puyo - but you could bomb your friends and stack power ups etc. probably my fav Tetris after the original arcade version and the gameboy version

@Sketcz bit loose but does the blade runner point and click count? Felt spy ISH I would say. But spy RPGs as a concept? Great idea to me!

Very odd list - e.g. super street fighter 2 turbo the SNES version higher than the arcade original etc. Satisfying to read though and plenty to play!

Bit of a nothing story really. GTA could have been published by Nintendo*.

*But it wasn't

This is great! Shame the Nintendo lawyers will turn up tomorrow and take literally 3/4 of his house as payment for doing anything remotely emulated...

Jaguar for me. Although emulation is pretty hard so I expect not. But I would like to have basically all the games on one mini - that would be great

I loved this period of the arcades for fighting games. SF2 championship edition was ok but then hyper fighting was fun and fast. At our local arcade we also had super street fighter first before ssf2t and it was quite a step up from the first one. Can't remember the cabinet name but it was a big 50inch CRT screen and was quite dominating for the arcade at the time. Granted they increased the price of a game from 20p to 50p but was worth it once I got used to it. I never managed to execute a super though until the 3do demo unit in a virgin shop.

After ssf2t, you had the marvel Vs games followed by street fighter 3. Also early Tekken games as well as virtua fighter and king of fighter games. All next to each other, all amazing. Shame I only used to have £2 max to spend when I went there!

I wish these sorts of things existed when I was a kid as I was pretty good at these sorts of things. I really don't have the time to master these now but my regular games used to be wipeout and solitaire on windows (basically complete the game I'm under a min or less). I also managed to complete soul caliber 2 on the Dreamcast in under 20 seconds or something like that - but never took a screenshot etc before I sold my Dreamcast.

Great these types of things are good now and people can compete!

These are definitely one set of fighting games I would like to buy and this cabinet might make me jump on this. However, I really want a virtual pinball so I'll be getting that first!

That's far too small for £250. Really, this money isn't far off the steam deck and if you buy that you have access to every system (if you legally own the roms).

I'm pretty sure that when someone did the switch dump quite a few years ago with all the emulators in there - it included the GameCube. Maybe it will come with the switch 2 or another expansion layer - either way I would be up for it!

I do have a feeling Tekken 8 is right up there but it needs time to mature. I love the all out blast nature of it and the speed it much faster than before. Single player stuff is a weeny but less than before but enough to keep interest. I hope they add more local content tbh!

I think I still have this tape - was a great time of magazines. Other memorable ones included the Tekken 3 ps1 demo disk, cd32 magazines, couple of amiga ones and of course all the pc ones too with demos of megarace etc

@Poodlestargenerica dont forget the Wii u also!

For these sort of things (rather than faff with wine) I generally use proton ge to run the game directly. I.e. set the initial application to a setup.exe, install the game, then move the URL for the exe to where it's installed.

Did you try using that with this Damian?

Putting GTA 5 above GTA is a bold move! GTA 4 was more complete and while the graphics were not as brilliant the overall story and gameplay was better. And it wasn't so online focused etc

What a shame they don't do this stuff in the ROW. Why does Japan always get the pick of the crop with titles like this? Is it far too complicated for the ROW to understand (in Sega's eyes?)

Things have moved on from 20 years ago and the world has got a lot more complicated. I'm sure we can all embrace an arcade + card system. The problem in the past is it was always half arsed except in London. No wonder these card systems were never popular. Just make it nfc with mobiles (which is what I think this is) then we are all laughing.

I remember virtual fighter 3 looking so groundbreaking when it came out. The graphics were like nothing else at the time. For some reason, I remember the quality looking better on the old CRT screens, it was truly jaw dropping. My local arcade upped the vf3 machine to a vf3 tb final machine - it was glorious. It lasted about 1 year before they got rid of it, it was big and no one really understood how to play it except hard core fighters, which where I live are few and far between. People liked marvel Vs capcom however!

This is the most tempting cabinet so far, but an outlandish price. I would love some modding on this so you can access all the light gun games. However a steam deck + https://sindenlightgun.com/ could this what this does and more!

Sorry I may have missed it, but what is the actual price for this? Looks great though, hopefully they will support this longer than a year like most of their devices!

Fine until I saw the price! What the hell? Vinyl doesn't need to be game prices! £90 for effectively an album when a normal album should be under £30 (although that's changing of late), when the vinyl costs about £3 to produce. Reduce the prices then I might consider....

@Poodlestargenerica your probably right, although nostalgia sells these days. Can't believe I was 10 when I was playing this game if it's 30 years old this year. I'm too cynical for anything like this to be good, so I agree with you. But these videos brought me pleasure and reminded me of the initial days of cd rom. I can't also believe I was creating my own samples at this point, recording from VHS via phono cables into my creative sound card. I created a mafia sound set, which involved a lot of swear words, perfect for a 10 year old!

@MrLinkTathapast Yer most of these style devices have limited support after a couple of years max, let alone hardware failure. I know it's double price, but it will last a lot longer and you have more emulation capability - I recommend a steam deck!

Fantastic article and thanks for the info. One to look out for!

Any idea if this works with the steam deck? I've now (after reading this review) got a hankering for some virtual cop and time crisis, so hopefully this can work!

Price makes this no comparison for the deck. Secondly, the future support of the device and the dock will be limited to most likely 1-2 years max, whereas the steam decks support is expected to be multiple years not to mention the steam deck dock software upgrades.
So for me, the money and support make the deck the only option.

@Razieluigi your going to be waiting for about 3 years is reckoned. If you can afford one, I highly recommend one as they are brilliant!

Brilliant article and it made a very enjoyable read on a Sunday. Thanks for this!