Arcade1Up is back with new arcade cabinets after nearly shutting down
In December, an internal email said the company was closing and most staff were gone. Seven months later the brand is alive under new owners, with a Supreme line, the first Sonic cabinet, and OutRun back on the shelf. The company that built it didn’t make it.
Seven months ago, Arcade1Up looked finished.
On December 11, word spread that the home-arcade maker was shutting down. An alleged internal email put the closure at December 12, with most of the staff let go. The company said nothing for five days.
It’s now selling new cabinets.
The week it looked dead
The rumor moved the way these things do — a Reddit megathread, then Wario64, then every retro outlet at once. No statement from the company.
What made it feel real was Code Mystics, a software partner that had worked on Arcade1Up products, publishing a note about what would happen if the company folded and its online servers went dark. When a vendor starts explaining contingency plans for your servers, the situation is not a rumor anymore.
Then on December 16, Arcade1Up posted to Facebook.
Basic Fun!, a Boca Raton toy company, had acquired “select assets” and intended to support the home arcade category and existing products “to the best of our ability.”
Not quite a rescue. The brand changed hands; the company behind it didn’t make it.
How it got here
Arcade1Up launched in 2018 as a subsidiary of Tastemakers LLC, and it more or less created the modern home-arcade category. Three-quarter-scale replica cabinets, assembled at home, sold through Walmart, Best Buy, and Costco at a price that undercut a real coin-op by thousands.
The licensing was genuinely impressive: Atari, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Sega, Midway, Konami. Actual arcade history — Time Crisis, Ridge Racer, Marvel vs. Capcom, NFL Blitz, Ms. Pac-Man.
For a few years it worked. Then it didn’t.
The slow part
Per trade reporting, Tastemakers spent recent years dealing with executive turnover, IP disputes with its own licensors — including legal scuffles with Atari and Coleco — and a customer base that was steadily losing patience.
That last part is the one enthusiasts talk about most. Later Arcade1Up cabinets drew persistent criticism for cutting corners: 16:9 displays on games designed for 4:3 screens, cabinets shaved down in size, a general sense that each generation was cheaper than the last. The community that made the brand was also its loudest critic.
There was a quieter tell, too. Roughly three months before the acquisition, Arcade1Up’s SVP of licensing left the company for Basic Fun!. People noticed at the time. They noticed a lot more in December.
What’s actually shipping now
Basic Fun! spent early 2026 rebuilding the line, unveiling its first collection under the brand in February and showing hardware at Toy Fair.
The headline addition is a premium Supreme tier — stereo speaker grilles, illuminated marquees, decorative coin doors. The pitch is a cabinet that looks like the real thing standing in your basement rather than a scaled-down approximation.
The lineup leans on the biggest names available: a new Ms. Pac-Man, a WWE WrestleFest cabinet, and the first Sonic the Hedgehog home arcade cabinet the brand has ever made, carrying Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, and Sonic 3D Blast.
And OutRun is back, in both Supreme and Deluxe configurations — steering wheel, gas and brake pedals, a 19-inch panel on the Supreme.
OutRun has been here before
Arcade1Up has released an OutRun cabinet before. Put the two side by side and the plan is obvious.
Arcade1Up’s first driving cabinet was an OutRun released in 2020 — a sit-down build with a bench seat, a 17-inch screen, and four games: OutRun, Turbo OutRun, OutRunners, and Power Drift. It launched at $499.99.
The 2026 version is that product rebuilt with better parts under different owners. Which is roughly the whole strategy: take the catalog that already sold, put it in a nicer box, and hope the people who bought the first one are still interested.
Yu Suzuki’s 1986 original remains one of the most influential games ever made, and it has never stopped being a good reason to buy a cabinet with a steering wheel on it.
The fear hasn’t fully lifted
Basic Fun! is a real toy company with real retail distribution, which is more than Tastemakers had at the end. It also already had its own home-arcade line before buying this one, so it isn’t learning the category from scratch.
But the caveats are honest ones. It bought “select assets,” not the whole company. Its statement about supporting existing products came with “to the best of our ability” attached, which is not the language of a guarantee. Owners of online-enabled cabinets still have a reasonable question about how long those servers stay up. And the community skepticism that built up over years of thinner cabinets doesn’t reset because the logo changed hands.
The brand survived December. The company that made it didn’t, and everyone who bought a cabinet from that company is now depending on the goodwill of the one that bought the pieces.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Time Extension — the December 2025 shutdown reports, the Code Mystics statement about server contingencies, and the SVP of licensing departing for Basic Fun! months earlier
The Toy Book — Basic Fun!’s confirmation, and the account of Tastemakers’ executive turnover, licensor disputes with Atari and Coleco, and community frustration
Shacknews / EventHubs — the alleged internal closure email, the December 12 date, and Arcade1Up’s Facebook statement
Basic Fun! press materials and SEGAbits — the February 2026 relaunch, the Supreme tier features, and the first Sonic the Hedgehog cabinet
Arcade1Up — the current OutRun Supreme and Deluxe listings
Shacknews / ComicBook.com (2020) — the original OutRun cabinet’s specs, game list, and $499.99 launch price