A short while back, Sega announced their plans to release a miniature version of the Genesis, giving retro gaming fans another console to spend their money on. So yeah, Nintendo started a trend that’s not ending anytime soon, with even more ghosts of gaming’s past likely to try to grab their share of the pie. The Capcom Home Arcade is the latest of the bunch, giving gamers a way to bring the classic two-player arcade feel into their living rooms.
No, this isn’t your traditional home console that you plug into a TV and plug a pair of gamepads into. Instead, the darn thing looks like a darn CAPCOM signage that you can hang in your bedroom to celebrate your lifelong love affair with arcade fighting games. Except, the signage actually houses a full set of electronics that allow you to play some of the outfit’s most memorable titles from gaming’s nascent years.
The Capcom Home Arcade puts two sets of arcade controls across the console’s width (one joystick, six action buttons, and two system buttons on each side), allowing you to play side-by-side with an opponent just like kids used to do back when arcades were hot fire. Yes, all those kids are now middle-aged folks who may or may not buy this out of nostalgia. Either way, that classic design means you’re not supposed to play this while comfortably plopped down on the couch. Instead, you’re likely setting this down on the coffee table and mashing buttons while staring at the TV with your upper body leaning forward. Yeah, good luck middle-aged folks with back problems.
It uses competition-grade Sanwa JLF-TP-8YT joysticks, which boast eight-way GT-Y directional gates, and OBSF buttons, ensuring it delivers the best arcade experience. Seriously, if you value precision, response time, and longevity with your arcade setup, these control elements will definitely deliver.
The Capcom Home Arcade is completely plug-and-play, so you just hook it up to your TV’s HDMI slot to start playing any of the included games. Yes, you can totally set this up in a custom arcade cabinet, too, making it possibly the simplest way to build one of your own, provided you actually have the skills to build a cabinet (or, at least, know someone who does). A total of 16 games are onboard, namely Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, Giga Wing, Mega Man: The Power Battle, Alien vs Predator, Armored Warriors, 1944: The Loop Master, Strider, Capcom Sports Club, Captain Commando, Cyberbots, Darkstalkers, Ecofighters, Final Fight, Ghouls n’ Ghosts, Progear, and Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo.
All the 16 games use the original Capcom CPS1 and CPS2 ROMs, which is emulated using software from FB Alpha. According to the outfit, it delivers an “authentic and accurate arcade experience,” so folks who enjoy playing with joysticks and large mashing-friendly buttons should have plenty of fun. As with the old arcade games, it saves a leaderboards of in-game performance, except this time, there’s the option to store it online, allowing you to compare how good you are at Giga Wing compared to the other retro gaming diehards out there.
The Capcom Home Arcade launches October 25, with European pricing set at €229.99.