Toy Fair isn’t just toys, and My Arcade continued to wow with their line of mini-arcade cabinets. Heavy Barrel and Caveman Ninja are coming up fast, and a second wave with Bandai Namco titles is planned for the end of the year.

No quarters required

Retro gaming being what it is, there’s little wonder why the mini-arcade cabinet has become a thing. If you’re somehow unaware, small arcade standups have seen a boom in the last year or so, with several companies jumping on board the bandwagon.

My Arcade has actually been making them for a while, but with generic units loaded up with no-name games. That was, till last year anyway. In a few short months, they’ve produced mini-cabinets based on Data East arcade titles Burgertime, Karate Champ, and Bad Dudes. Two more are planned and will land at stores next month with Heavy Barrel and Caveman Ninja.

These little gems are terrific, and I can say that with some certainty since I own a few. The screens are a nice size, the controls are sharp (and have removable joysticks if you prefer a pad), and they’re small enough to store on pretty much any shelf. One thing that I probably should mention however are the games themselves. The titles loaded onto these machines are the NES versions of the headline games. So no, they’re not the actual arcade versions. Honestly though, they’re fun, and that’s kind of what matters.

Additionally, they also have a 10″ arcade cab that will serve as a supplement to the Data East wave. That one will come stocked with 30 games including all of the standalone titles and stuff like Bloody Wolf. Cool stuff. That’ll run $99.99 USD, while the standard models all run $34.99.

But let’s chat a bit about that second wave.

My Arcade has signed Bandai Namco for their sequel series, and that includes some big names. Pac-Man, Dig Dug and more will be included, with the series hitting stores around the end of this year. My Arcade also says that future waves will be constructed with the same pattern as the first two.

So each wave will have a “company” theme. There’s apparently a very nice license lined up for wave three too, though they wouldn’t tell me which one. I have a pretty vivid imagination though.