Wall-Mounted Arcade Machine Lets You Live Your Retro Dreams At Home
When you were younger, who didn't dream of growing up and coming home to your rooftop apartment, turning on the lava lamp, a jukebox machine, and kicking back in a bean bag to watch movies on a projector? When you were bored, why not play some pinball or boot up your retro arcade machine? Also, who was jealous about the iconic Friends episode where Phoebe gave Monica and Chandler Ms. Pacman? Sadly, while most of us would love to have a retro arcade machine in our homes, we probably don't have the money or space.
Unless you can time travel back to the times of Stranger Things, physical arcades are also in decline. This also isn't helped by coronavirus, meaning you can't actually go to many of the magical arcades that are still going strong around the world. Retro gaming has always been popular, but with it having a resurgence, you can now bring the fun home with Polycade's wall-mounted arcade machines.
What is the Polycade wall-mounted arcade machine?
With major arcade titles from back in the day still offering hours of entertainment, here comes the Polycade wall-mounted arcade machine. Combining retro games with an appealing Tron-inspired aesthetic, Polycade hopes to capture our childhood sense of wonder with something that also fits in your living room without looking like you've stuck a telephone box in the corner.
Polycade's mission statement is simple: "Bring back the social style of gaming that was the norm in the 80s and 90s". There's the main idea to reinvent the arcade machine with what it might look like if it was first introduced in 2020. There's a whole range of products, starting with the Polycade Lite for $1,999/£1,425, moving up to the Polycade Lux at $3,999/£2,852, and the supersized Polycade Squadcade at a hefty $4,999/$3.56. As the second-hand arcade market continues to soar, Polycade could be a financial solution - albeit an expensive one.
What do you get with the Polycade wall-mounted arcade machine?
Apart from a design that looks like Ridley Scott created it for Alien, the Polycade has all the mod-cons. As well as coming pre-loaded with arcade titles you'd expect - like Pac-Man, Street Fighter, and Bubble Bobble - it has pre-installed Steam and emulators to play everything from back in the day and now. In terms of hardware, the Polycade also has joysticks and buttons for the perfect ergonomic play. For more modern developments, there are USB ports for the keyboard and mouse if that's your bag. Finally, there's a HD camera and microphone for all your content creation needs.
Going for the big bucks, and assuming you'd splash out on the Squadcade so four of your play, the biggest brother boasts a 32″ Display (1920 x 1080) at 2ms response rate, AMD Ryzen 3400G CPU, 8GB RAM, 1TB SSD, RADEON RX Vega 11 Graphics, 5ghz WiFi, and Windows 10 Home OS. Well, at least you get plenty for your dollar. At the moment, only the Lux is available to buy, with the Lite and Squadcade currently on pre-order.
It's a tragic turn of events that the "death" of the arcade came in the mid-80s when home games consoles took over. Being able to take the action into your living room with the Nintendo Entertainment System, Commodore 64, Atari 7800, and Sega Master System revolutionised the way we play games. Putting the cumbersome arcade games in a much smaller package, home games consoles also became a portable way of playing without needing a forklift truck to move a classic arcade machine. Polycade has the best of both worlds, although, we wouldn't fancy trying to move this one off the wall.
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Images via Polycade
