I picked this cabinet up a few weeks back (you can read about that adventure here). Upright Centipedes are lovely looking machines; the artwork is arguably the most iconic of Atari’s efforts from the early eighties. Over 45,000 of these units were built, making it one of the great commercial successes of the company’s early 80s…
Author: Tony
Sky Skipper: Nintendo’s Long Lost Arcade Game
A lot of extraordinary things go on in this hobby. One of the highlights for me is observing the dedication of some collectors. Some of these guys are really, really passionate, and are prepared to go above and beyond to preserve classic arcade games. I guess this is partly driven by a desire to take…
Tales from the Arcade Factory Floors
The rarity of an arcade cabinet is very subjective. Just because a game is old, doesn’t necessarily mean it should be regarded as rare. After 1984, when the video arcade market pretty much crashed, the production numbers went down from tens of thousands, to single digit thousand production runs. So in many cases, you are…
Arcade Raid: The Duke of Lancaster Ship
Regular readers of this blog will have seen me reference “Arcade Raids” in previous articles. This might create images in your head of hooded gangs of arcade collectors breaking into warehouses in the middle of the night to stealth-steal a stash of classic arcade cabs. As exciting as that would be, the reality is somewhat…
Atari Centipede: Weekend Pickup!
You have to move quickly when you get a sniff of acquiring a classic arcade cabinet that’s been stored away somewhere. As a fellow collector/restorer always reminds me, there’s no honour in buying and selling arcade machines. This is particularly true right now, as the supply has dried up. Very few machines are coming to…
Abandoned Arcades: The Long Goodbye
It’s hard to put a figure on the number of classic arcade machines that are still around. As you will have read on this blog, those cabinets not in the safe hands of restorers and collectors today, are likely to have met a grim fate at some point. When machines came to the end of…
Arcade Loft: Video Tour & Interview
The Loft Arcade welcomed my old mate Alex last weekend, to help him record the first in his new video series where he travels the country and documents on video home arcade collections, whilst interviewing their owners. Alex is a good lad, and a hugely enthusiastic arcade collector. Specialising in Nintendo arcade cabinets, he has…
Cosmic Guerilla: Weekend Pickup!
Universal is a Japanese entertainment company with quite a history. As well as an arcade heritage from Lady Bug to Mr Do!, they also produced Pachinko and slot machines to furnish Japanese arcade parlours back in the day. Here in the UK, I recall some of their earlier video game titles, specifically the Cosmic series. …
Robotron Cabaret Restoration 1
If you’re not familiar with Williams’ Robotron arcade game then you need to seek it out. A cornerstone of classic arcade gaming, it delivers relentless twitch shooter action in absolute spades. This is a game that delivers even today. Frenetic and colourful with sound effects to die for (literally), its gameplay pumps adrenaline through your…
The Arcade House of Horrors
This week, we take a look at some examples of what are known in the trade as “Conversions”. But I’m talking bad ones. Real bad arcade conversions. The purists of the video arcade collecting community tend to collect dedicated cabs. These are totally original, unmolested arcade cabinets from the 70s and 80s. A level of…