Finding A Place In Your Home For An Tabletop Arcade Machine

The gaming world has evolved a lot over the years. From massive arcade cabinets in amusement centres to much smaller handheld devices that can fit in your back pocket and that are fully portable.

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Arcade games can now be fully customised and bespoke to how you would like them, this means that there is no excuse for there not to be an arcade machine out there for you.

Excluding the smaller, portable gaming devices such as the Nintendo DS and the Game Boy, tabletop arcade machines are probably one of the more convenient options to bring the retro side of gaming into your home. This article will outline the benefits of purchasing a tabletop arcade machine, as well as discuss why it is convenient to have one of these within your home.

What Is The Difference Between a Tabletop Arcade Machine And An Arcade Cabinet?

When someone mentions arcade gaming you would automatically assume that they were talking about the massive arcade cabinets you find in bars and amusement centres. Even though these are purchasable and make ideal collectors pieces for games rooms and man caves, they are not the simplest of things to work into your home’s interior. These take up a large space and are not the easiest to maneuver around your house if you do not have a designated space for it.

On the other hand tabletop arcade machines hold the same retro feel, and operate in the same sort of way, but are a lot more convenient. Firstly, and the most convenient aspect of a tabletop arcade machine is their size. They can fit on any work surface or table and are fairly easy to unplug and move out of the way if you need to free up the space, or if you want to move it to another room.

As well as their convenience in size they can also be made bespoke, featuring any design you would like. This means you can easily match the exterior of the game itself to the interior of your home, depending on which room you decide to feature in.

What Are The Benefits of Having A Tabletop Arcade Machine?

The benefits of owning a tabletop arcade machine are endless, this is due to the way in which they can improve your social life, as well as giving your home a sense of nostalgia as well as personality.

If you broadcasted amongst your friends that you own a retro, tabletop arcade machine, the chances are you are going to have a lot of people invite themselves into your home. This means the nights at the pub or the local arcade are no longer needed as a way of meeting up with your friends. This will also potentially save you a lot of money.

Having your friends around, bringing their own drink, and ordering a local takeaway is a much more cost effective way of socialising with your friends, and in the comfort of your own home. The tabletop arcade machine being the main factor of entertainment allows for you to compete with your friends, for the high score and made up rewards. And because you are the one who owns the machine itself and have the ability to practise whenever you like, there is no reason as to why you can not come out on top every time.

The fact that these machines mostly come with freeplay options or custom tokens, cuts out the need to feed the machine money in order to play it. This is something you can not do at your local arcade.

Why Do People Go Back To Retro Games?

One of the main reasons that people always go back to playing retro, old school games is the sense of nostalgia which comes with playing them. This nostalgia is something which you do not get when playing newer games that come out on the Xbox for example. This is because newer games’ narratives are very similar to these older games.

Games such as Donkey Kong and Street Fighter, bring back childhood memories for many, and are something that older generations like to share with their children, and the younger generation in general.

These older games also do not need the internet to operate, making them easier to just switch on and play. Also the lack of need for constant system updates and downloads is another, more convenient benefit that comes with owning a tabletop arcade machine.

How Can You Fit An Arcade Machine Into Your Home’s Interior?

Adding any sort of retro arcade game into your home’s interior design is going to add massive amounts of personality to the room. It will also attract the attention of any one who visits. This is due to the fact that not everyone has, or even thinks about featuring one of these within their house.

You can add these arcade machines into a games room, to add a retro feel to the room, as well as showcase the way in which the gaming industry has evolved. However, due to the fact that retro arcade games nowadays are fully customisable there is now limit as to where you can place these around your home. You can also use the bespoke aspect of these arcade games to show your own personality as well.

To Summarise

Adding a tabletop arcade machine into your home interior has many benefits, not only does it add a sense of personality to the room at a smaller size than an arcade console. It holds the same amount of nostalgia for anyone who grew up playing games like Pac-man and Tekken.

The fact that you can now get all of these old school games, at a smaller, more convenient size, as well as customised to how you would like them to look. Means that there is no reason as to why there would not be a place somewhere in your home for a tabletop arcade machine.

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Dan Dunn

Executive Managing editor

Editor and Admin at MarkMeets since Nov 2012. Columnist, reviewer and entertainment writer and oversees all of the section's news, features and interviews. During his career, he has written for numerous magazines.

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