The Dream of Home Arcades Isn’t Dead, and Neither Is Arcade1Up

The company behind Lite Brite said it wants to make Arcade1Up feel even more authentic than before. The pulsing light of the home arcade scene dimmed late last year. Arcade1Up, one of the few companies that made owning your own basement full of arcade classics a reality, announced in December it was selling off most of its assets to a separate company. But the brand isn’t nearly as dead as initially feared. The new Arcade1Up has ambitions. One is to make more arcade machines. Two, to make them better and more authentic than they ever were before. Basic Fun!, the company that acquired Arcade1Up late last year, is not the first firm you think of for retro gaming. It’s mostly known for toy brands like Lite Brite, Care Bears, K’nex, and Lincoln Logs, plus a fledgling brand of miniature and large-scale arcade devices under the Arcade Classics name. Basic Fun!’s digital marketing manager, Aaron Kredi, took Gizmodo through its current lineup of arcade machines and full-sized cabinets it had on display at Toy Fair 2026. He said the new team behind these latest cabinets was trying to enforce new standards. That ranged from extra detail for these cabinets, better craftsmanship and quality control, and a broader selection of games and franchises available… eventually. Arcade1Up promises to take its time © Kyle Barr / Gizmodo Kredi wasn’t shy about detailing the acquired company’s former failings. He pointed out the large exposed screw holes buried into the side panels of Arcade1Up’s older machines. Some of those cabinets also sported a Plexiglas layer on the controls to keep users from sloughing off the vinyl arcade artwork with their grubby fingers. Basic Fun! instead plans to use a rubberized panel art Kredi claims is a closer approximation of the 1980s arcade cabinets. Basic Fun! has further ambitions to effectively revitalize the Arcade1Up name—especially as the logo that will remain stenciled across all of the company’s tall cabinets. Kredi said the company is considering redoing Arcade1Up’s claw machines. Those machines were notoriously faulty, with issues stemming from the rubber O-ring in the claw mechanism down to wiring problems and issues within the machines themselves. Kredi said they’re considering reaching out to claw machine partners to find where the biggest brands source their parts. “We’re a bigger company, and that means we don’t have to put out as many cabinets every month,” Kredi said. With fewer cabinets, that means the company can spend more time with each device to ensure quality control standards, he said. © Kyle Barr / Gizmodo © Kyle Barr / Gizmodo © Kyle Barr / Gizmodo Over the last few years, Arcade1Up tried to entice more customers with touchscreen board game tables and slot machines. Those don’t seem to be making a return with this current iteration. The first surprise game from the company for 2026 is a collection of the classic Sonic games from the Sega Genesis. The XL-sized machine I got to test was not finalized. Basic Fun! said it was considering different side-panel art, and Kredi claimed they had not cemented the full game list. Currently, the cabinet features Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2, Sonic 3D Blast, and Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. We’ll find out if the machine manages to secure the third Sonic game closer to launch this fall. This isn’t the first time Sonic has appeared in arcade form. Sega brought this game to the Mega-Tech systems. So as I sped through the first Green Hill Zone, I found the arcade stick and tri-button controls didn’t feel off-putting compared to the game played on a traditional Genesis-style controller. A cabinet built for the sweatiest wrestling fans © Kyle Barr / Gizmodo The other big release slated for this fall is a large four-player WrestleFest cabinet. It’s akin to the company’s existing two-player cabinet from its Arcade Classics line, though with more players, games like WrestleFest, SuperStars, and The Big Pro Wrestling! feel extra hectic when you’re sweating in close confines with some beer-hawking buddies. Both the Sonic and WrestleFest cabinets are part of Basic Fun!’s “Supreme” line, meaning they will cost closer to $650 compared to the smaller cabinets like Centipede at around $500. These cabinets should be available in Sam’s Club locations and from other big box stores. One of those cheaper titles will include a rendition of Ms. Pac-Man sporting a classic Japanese-style arcade stick. I also went hands-on with Basic Fun!’s existing cabinets, like the classic vector-based Star Wars Return of the Jedi. Based on my short time with it, the recreation arcade machine had responsive controls with just the right amount of stiffness and responsiveness to make lining up shots feel precise. When Basic Fun! acquired Arcade1Up, the company brought over most of its assets and some, but not all, of that company’s original staff, according to Kredi. That doesn’t mean all the licensing deals also transferred over. Basic Fun! has to renegotiate deals with the various stakeholders who still covet these classic arcade titles. Based o