Are you an arcade owner? Do you find yourself playing your new arcade game every day the first few weeks you get it and then it pretty much just sits there? Unless you have a huge space to store different games, it is unlikely you can store or collect hundreds of arcade machines. There is an arcade cabinet that can fix that issue and then some. It’s called the iiRcade and it is exactly what you can do. Download new games anytime you like with a list of hundreds of titles in the iiRcade app store. Play games from all different generations on one platform. Titles like Dragon’s Lair, Burgertime, Double Dragon, and R*Type to name a few. With licensed games from Sega like Shadow Dancer, Android games like Dead Cells and 1st person shooters like Dead Effect 2. The latest teaser games coming out is the original Space Invaders and Elevator Action 1 and 2 from the retro arcade age. The iiRcade machine has 2 player compatibilities with split screen and co-op games available. 
iiRcade started in August of 2020 as a Kickstarter Campaign. With a goal of $50,000 which surpassed over 10 times that amount and made the dream a reality. That dream is the brainchild of CEO Jong-Wook Shin. “Now, I can relive my youth with iiRcade and not only that, I can also play amazing games from all over the world that I missed due to my local arcade not having them. I can also have spectacular modern games from today’s arcade style experience home”.
With many different cabinet designs, the game has a choice of how they want the arcade game to look in their space. Themes include Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace, Beach Buggy Racing, RetroMania Wrestling, Double Dragon, and the standard iiRcade cabinet. 
Another feature that sticks out from all the rest is the ability to post high scores via wireless to the community of other iiRcade players. Battle for the top spot in tournaments that are held each month as well as local online play where you can create game rooms to play your friends.
What was very appealing to me when I received the machine, was how easy it was to build. Both the stand and table components are easy to assemble. It has a sleek design that makes it less bulky than retro cabinets that try to fully replicate original machines. I am mostly a console fan and can setup and take down any type of retro consoles from any era. Arcade on the other hand, I have no idea how to build, fix, maintain or even reset sometimes. The iiRcade, however, makes the building phase easy and simple at the same time. I was surprised that after a couple hours, I had a fully built arcade machine in my house, that I built. It really made the enjoyment of owning it even better. 
Thanks to Gunther Vinson, owner of Uplayarcade.com, there are community high score submissions for some of the popular games and you can submit your scores as you get them to climb the to the top of the leaderboard. If you visit Gunther’s website, you can also see approved iiRcade peripherals like a 4-way controller adapter, and iiRcade speaker covers. Also, with the latest update for the iiRcade, it has over 50 retro games with a global leaderboard. You can check your scores against all others who own the list of games that the leaderboard consists of.
The community of gamers is unlike most I have seen. There is a true family feel with the iiRcade men and women on social media, live streams, and online play. You do not really get that with any other home arcade product that I know of.
The other family feel I get with iiRcade, unlike anything else, is the live YouTube streams with the CEO himself. Jong is very good about updating the community with answers to questions, hints of new games coming soon, and updates on products that are being produced and shipped. It truly shows the passion he has for this product and the community. He holds weekly YouTube live streams to give the family updates on the machine, shipping times, new products and much more. Jong is 100% invested in this and making his consumers happy as much as he can.
• There are 64GB and 128GB options for storage, 64 GB can literally hold all of the game currently out for the arcade. You can always delete games you don’t play if your hard drive gets full but also reinstall them at no charge if you want them back later.
• You will be able to download new games from their app store on your phone. When you do one easy click to purchase your favorite game, the game will be automatically downloaded and installed onto your device so that by the time you are ready to play, it will be all ready to go.
• The screen size on the iiRcade is 19″ inches.
There are so many different categories of games to choose from. Any favorite genre you have is covered such as Sports, RPG, Arcade, Platform, Shooter, Colecovision, and many more.
I have seen so many reviews online of the iiRcade and I can honestly say that I have not seen a negative review. There are a few items YouTubers point out as maybe a personal negative, but overall, it has the highest reviews I have ever seen in an arcade machine.
The most popular games downloaded as of 9.15.2021 are:
JukeBox
RetroMania Wrestling
Riptide Renegade
Oddmar
Looping
Space Ace
The standard bartop arcade cabinet starts at $599.00, with the stand sold separately at $149.00. The special edition cabinets which include the stand range from $699.00 to $799.00. Shipping $99.99.
To me iiRcade is the best deal out there for a multigame arcade cabinet.
For more information on iiRcade you can visit https://www.iircade.com/
For Gaming Videos go to : https://www.youtube.com/c/iiRcade/videos
Todd Friedman is heavily involved in the retro gaming community and has co-promoted the Video Game Summit in Chicago, IL for the past 16 years. He also has published 2 books and written for various different gaming magazines including Old School Gamer.
