Push buttons and joysticks, flashing lights and roaring sound effects, and at the heart of this sight-and-sound sensation, a box that ate quarters.
The video-game arcade is an indelible memory for many, and now it lives again — sort of — thanks to the iPad.
Ion Audio’s iCade, shown earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show, is the 2011 version of the arcade game coin-op, a tabletop box that channels the iPad, using its Bluetooth wireless connectivity, to display what the company says will be a “huge suite” of classic titles from that classic-title-maker, Atari. Think “Pac-Man,” “Asteroids,” “Breakout” and, of course, “Pong.”
According to the ThinkGeek sales Web site, the $100 cabinet, which is supposed to go on sale on the spring, is no retro-fake tease. The iPad slips into a cradle that holds the screen upright and at an angle, and the games will be downloadable through Apple’s App Store.
The colorful toy looks pretty sturdy in photographs, but it remains to be seen whether it can take the abuse dished out by hyperexcited gamers smashing the buttons and grabbing at the stick while annihilating centipedes or bombing missile depots, Hopefully, we’ll have a go-round with one when it’s available.