RetroDimSum's Revocade Is a Raspberry Pi-Powered Arcade Cabinet with Hot-Swap Control Decks
Designed as a one-stop solution for almost all types of arcade gaming, the Revocade's control decks can be swapped at will.
Gaming startup RetroDimSum has launched a crowdfunding campaign for a Raspberry Pi-powered miniature arcade cabinet with a difference: The Revocade boasts interchangeable control decks, allowing it to be customized to the requirements of particular games.
"Tabletop Arcade Machines are nothing new. They usually come with arcade sticks and buttons. It's good, well, for the most part," says RetroDimSum founder Guangsi Han. "If you want to have a full gaming experience, and/or to use some peripherals (such as racing wheels, trackballs, spinners, etc.), you have to buy another dedicated arcade machine, but they can only play a handful games of that genre, and they will also cost you another hundreds of dollars."
Revocade, by contrast, aims to offer flexibility to the tabletop arcade platform. A main display unit houses the majority of the hardware; the controls, however, attach at the front — and can be swapped at-will using pogo-pin connectors to flip between a single-player six-button arcade stick layout, a racing wheel with foot pedals, and a trackball and spinner set — with plans for more, including a potential two-player six-button control deck, in the works.
Interestingly, the control decks pull double-duty: In addition to the pogo-pin connectors at the rear of each, there's a USB port. Plugging a suitable cable in allows each to be used with any PC or games console supporting generic USB controllers.
Inside the display unit is a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B with 4GB of RAM, offering what the company claims is enough pwoer "to run all of your favorite retro/arcade games perfectly well." The menu and emulation, meanwhile, is handled by RetroPie — with everything shown on a surprisingly large 17" IPS display, cropped to offer a 1:1 aspect ratio with letterboxing and pillarboxing for landscape and portrait games respectively.
The company is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for production, with the units starting at $499 for the main unit with the six-button arcade stick control deck. Delivery is expected to begin in July 2023.