Blaze Entertainment today has announced the newest member of the Evercade family, the Evercade Alpha. This version of the hardware takes the form of a tabletop arcade with a dedicated screen.
The Evercade is a retro-focused family of consoles and handhelds. What distinguishes it from mini consoles, is the fact that its games are stored on cartridge. The collections Blaze releases have included games from consoles, classic microcomputers, and modern digital games, but one of the most important facets of its preservation efforts is with arcade games from developers like Toaplan and Data East.
So it makes sense to have one of its form factors be more arcade-like. It includes an 8” 4:3 screen and “competition level” arcade buttons and stick. The deluxe version comes with Sanwa buttons, but I’m assuming that you can probably replace them yourself if you’re savvy. You can also plug in external controllers for two players.
If there’s one feature I’m missing it’s the ability to plug into an external display. It’s a fairly big unit to just plug into your TV, but it would be nice to have.
The Evercade Alpha is coming in two versions. There’s the Megaman Power Fighters version, which comes with the two titles in that series, as well as some classics like Final Fight, Strider, Knights of the Round, and Carrier Air Wing. The other is Street Fighter branded and has Street Fighter II’ Champion Edition, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo, and Street Fighter Alpha 1-3. The marquees are swappable, and the deluxe edition of each comes with six different ones.
I’m interested in the Evercade Alpha because I love the Taito Egret II Mini and Sega Astro City Mini, but I like the idea of being able to just slot in easy-to-obtain cartridges for more games. My only issue is the size because I don’t have a lot of surface space.
The Evercade Alpha will be up for preorder on June 4, 2024, and will be priced at £199.99/$229.99/€229.99 for the normal versions. The Deluxe versions will be more expensive, but the US price hasn’t been announced. In Europe it will be £249.99/€289.99.
