The success of Nintendo's Classic line of retro consoles has caused other video game companies to enter the market with their own retro systems, such as the C64 Mini and the PlayStation Classic. Capcom has announced that they will be releasing their own Plug & Play arcade retro console with an absurdly high price point that may kill it upon arrival.
The Capcom Home Arcade is a huge two-player arcade stick in the shape of the Capcom logo. The fact that the system is Plug & Play means that it will work with any display with an HDMI input. The sticks and buttons are very high quality and the emulation is meant to be arcade-perfect. The system is currently only announced for Europe, though more details about a North American version will be coming in the future.
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The Capcom Home Arcade will ship with sixteen games, which are 1944: The Loop Master, Alien vs. Predator, Armored Warriors, Capcom Sports Club, Captain Commando, Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness, Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, Eco Fighters. Final Fight, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Giga Wing, Mega Man: The Power Battle
Progear, Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, Strider, and Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo.
The major problem with the Capcom Home Arcade is the price, which is currently listed as €229, which is currently worth around $260 and is far more expensive than the other retro consoles were at launch. You can buy a brand new Nintendo Switch for almost the same price as a Capcom Home Arcade, as well as a second-hand PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, and all of them have a far bigger library of games than sixteen ancient arcade titles.
The selection of games on offer in the Capcom Home Arcade is also lacking, especially as there are many different ways for people to play the older Street Fighter games, as well as titles like Final Fight. Anyone who has used an arcade emulator can tell you how quickly arcade games grow tiresome, as they weren't meant for extended play sessions, with the intention being to give players a brief thrill before the difficulty kicked them off so that another kid with money could take over.
The fact that the two arcade sticks are connected means that two players will have to sit in a very specific way in order to enjoy the games, which may not be comfortable depending on the people and the setting involved.
Capcom has been on a roll recently with several critical and commercially successful games, so it's possible that they may be able to find an audience for an incredibly expensive retro console.
The Capcom Home Arcade is due to be released on October 25, 2019.
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