A Nintendo Switch table arcade cabinet has gamers intrigued

Japanese company Ittoku has revealed a prototype product that lets you play the Nintendo Switch on a nostalgic table style arcade cabinet, and many gamers are intrigued by it.

Table style arcade cabinets first debuted in the 1970s and take the form of a cocktail table. The surface of the table is made of glass and a monitor is installed underneath. Control panels are attached to one or more sides of the table and usually consist of an arcade stick and buttons. During that era in Japan, they could be found in places like coffee shops, and featured different games, including Taito’s worldwide smash hit Space Invaders.

The prototype cabinet revealed by Ittoku called Full HD Table Type Arcade Cabinet Switch Docking Model appears to repurpose a ready-made cabinet to which they have added a 22-inch Full HD LCD monitor. The cabinet features two sets of six-button layout controls, allowing two people to play together. There also seems to be a function that “activates” the A button whenever a 100-yen coin is inserted. The cabinet includes a headphone jack and USB ports to allow for the use of external controllers.

As seen in the video above, the Switch is connected to the table via a USB cable which outputs the display to the monitor. The control panel connection is also likely done through this same cable. The six arcade buttons are mapped to A/B/X/Y/L/R, while the red and yellow buttons in the center of the panel are mapped to the + and – buttons. The ZL/ZR and Home buttons are located to the left of the control panel, on the side of the cabinet. There does not appear to be any button mapped to the Switch’s Capture Button.

The video shows the games Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers, SEGA AGES Gain Ground, and Ninja Jajamaru-kun being played without issue. The Switch has a wealth of games that would be suitable for a table arcade cabinet, including the Arcade Archives series. If you grab the Space Invaders Invincible Collection, then you could play the original game just like on the arcade tables of old.

Ittoku is the operator of PCCADE, a shop that sells arcade cabinets that have been remodeled and installed with PCs. PCCADE uses a variety of old cabinets for their products, including Namco’s Noir cabinets, Sega’s Blast City cabinets, and game-specific cabinets. They even offer table style cabinets, meaning that this Switch cabinet is something well within the field of their expertise.

The Switch cabinet is still just a prototype and is not available to purchase like their other products. The PCCADE website features a wide range of different arcade cabinets, so those interested should take a look.

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-08-19 08:22 JST)