Throughout the past few years, Arcade1Up has released several mini-arcade cabinets that bring that arcade experience home. From the Mortal Kombat II, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Wars Arcade, and Marvel Super Heroes, just to name a few. Now the company, along with IGN are teasing a reveal of sorts that will take place later on today at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET. We’re not sure if this will be Livestreamed or if this will just be an article.
As for what the surprise is, well, that’s anyone’s guess, as the company hasn’t been said much of anything about it. What they did say is that this will be their biggest announcement ever, so it must be something big.
However, they did release an image that shows four silhouettes in the background, which was also quickly removed. That’s all we needed to do what we do; speculate.
Right out the gate, we can see that one of the announcements is going to be a pinball machine, which is new for Arcade1Up. I had been harassing the heck out of them to do a pinball machine, so it’s nice to see that we’re finally going to get one. As to what the pinball game it is, we have an idea. There were several leaked images that circulated on the internet at the beginning of this year.
What we know about this, if the rumors were correct, was that Arcade1Up has formed a relationship with LucasFilms, Bally, Williams Pinball, and Zen Studios, the developer responsible for several virtual pinball games. This new pinball machine will be based on Star Wars and will feature a 24-inch LCD screen, 7-inch LCD marquee, and wi-fi connectivity.
That said, I doubt this is the only pinball machine that Arcade1Up will announce. I expect to see many others announced today, with more coming in the future.
The other cabinet to the far right looks to be a light gun game. Seeing how these are pulled from the arcade, this could be Big Buck Hunter. The silhouette looks exactly like the Big Buck Hunter arcade cab.
That’s two down, that just leaves to more and unfortunately, the first image doesn’t give me much to go on. The third image, however, looks to be a take on a retro arcade cab. The shorter size and the square top give it away.
*Apparently we’re being told that the PAC Man 40th Anniversary was already released. I can’t verify that as all the locations online are saying that this doesn’t get released until June 11th and June 20th. So that guess is wrong.*
It doesn’t hurt that we already saw this during CES 2020, it just didn’t have a release date, that is until now. This one is the 40th Anniversary Pac-Man Special Edition, which also had a posting on Best Buy’s website. This one has also teased a while ago.
That just leaves the third image, and now that I had some time to think about it, I think I know what that is as well. Honestly, I think Arcade1Up released that image to make people like myself go through speculation hell. Anyway, I believe the third cabinet is going to be the NBA Jam 4-player arcade cab. The design is similar, especially the rounded top and the section where the marque peeks out a bit. This is also available for sale right now, with a release date of June 11 (Gamestop) / June 20th (Best Buy).
However, I’m not completely sure about this, as the design is also similar to the Marvel Super Heroes Arcade1Up unit. So it could also be another fighting game cabinet, maybe based on Marvel vs Capcom. I hope I’m wrong as I’d love an MvC2 arcade cabinet, just for old times’ sake. This announcement could also be larger than I’m expecting as there have been images of a Capcom vs Arcade cabinet show, along with several others.
These images were taken at an undisclosed location, and while I’m not sure who took these pictures (Thanks to @Resetera), we can see all the games I’ve listed in this article.
Assuming I’m correct, today’s Arcade1UP and IGN announcement will showcase these four new units, hopefully, some gameplay, and finally when they’ll be available.
- Pinball Machine (Not sure which one)
- Big Buck Hunter Arcade
- 40th Anniversary Pac-Man Special Edition
- NBA JAM Special Edition Arcade
Though we also could see an announcement of Marvel vs Capcom, as well as X-Men vs Street Fighter. I got my fingers crossed for those two.
Again, the announcement/reveal will take place later today, June 10, 2020, at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET.
