# New Home Arcade Product - The Unico Nova Blast Candy Cab! **Source:** RetroRalph **Type:** video **Published:** 2023-11-18 **Duration:** 8m 51s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXbgvlbrBnQ --- ## Analysis RetroRalph reviews the Unico Nova Blast, a new Japanese-style candy cab for the home arcade market featuring a 26-inch 4x3 monitor, Sanwa controls, JAMA board support, and the ability to run arcade boards, consoles, or PC content. The product represents a departure from typical home arcade emulation devices and targets arcade enthusiasts and operators. Pre-orders are expected to begin in December, with pricing not yet announced. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Unico Nova Blast is a metal candy cab (not an emulator) that supports JAMA arcade boards — _RetroRalph explicitly states it's not an emulator device like Arcade1Up or AtGames, but rather a traditional candy cab design that accepts PCBs and JAMA boards_ - [MEDIUM] The Nova Blast features a 26-inch 4x3 monitor with 1440x1080 resolution — _RetroRalph mentions the resolution from promotional material at IAPA trade show but expresses uncertainty about accuracy_ - [HIGH] The cabinet includes Sanwa buttons and Sanwa joysticks — _RetroRalph explicitly states this feature and notes it's unusual for home arcade companies to focus on quality parts_ - [MEDIUM] The monitor can be oriented horizontally or vertically for different game types — _RetroRalph states this as a feature but admits uncertainty about the mechanical implementation_ - [MEDIUM] Pre-orders for Nova Blast are expected to begin in December — _RetroRalph states his belief that pre-orders will start in December but indicates this information comes from preliminary sources_ ### Notable Quotes > "What makes a candy cab really unique, is that you can change out the games quite frequently" > — **RetroRalph**, ~2:15 > _Explains the core value proposition of candy cabs vs fixed emulation devices_ > "This seems to be built at a different quality level, and also it's going to be fully metal for the most part" > — **RetroRalph**, ~5:30 > _Distinguishes Nova Blast from typical home arcade products on quality and materials_ > "I don't know how you're going to gain access to the controls. It does look like one molded piece" > — **RetroRalph**, ~7:00 > _Highlights uncertainty about practical maintenance and control panel access_ > "There hasn't really been an exciting and an innovative product in the home arcade space since I would say its inception" > — **RetroRalph**, ~8:30 > _Positions Nova Blast as a significant departure from previous home arcade offerings_ > "If you're an arcade guy, then you are always probably trying to have some sort of test bench set up with a super gun device... how cool if the price is right, this thing could be something I test boards in" > — **RetroRalph**, ~4:00 > _Illustrates potential use case for arcade enthusiasts and board testers_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Unico | company | Manufacturer releasing the Nova Blast candy cab; previously known for LCD CRT replacement displays | | Nova Blast | product | New Japanese-style candy cab arcade cabinet by Unico with 26-inch 4x3 monitor, Sanwa controls, JAMA support | | Arcade1Up | company | Home arcade emulation cabinet manufacturer mentioned as contrast to Nova Blast's non-emulation approach | | AtGames | company | Home arcade platform manufacturer (Legends Ultimate) mentioned as contrast to Nova Blast | | Hadouken Arcade | company | Company that imports and refurbishes original Japanese candy cabs for resale | | RetroRalph | person | YouTube content creator and arcade enthusiast providing product overview and analysis | | Sanwa | company | Japanese arcade parts manufacturer; Nova Blast features Sanwa buttons and joysticks | | JAMA | organization | Japan Amusement Machine Association standard; Nova Blast supports JAMA arcade boards | | IAPA | event | International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions trade show in Florida; venue where Nova Blast was revealed | | Vuelix | product | Japanese candy cab model that RetroRalph owns and uses as comparison point for Nova Blast | | Sega Blast City | product | Classic Japanese arcade cabinet design that Nova Blast's aesthetics resemble | | Astro City | product | Japanese arcade cabinet design that influences Nova Blast's appearance | | Artax Multi | product | Multi-game arcade board running on RetroRalph's Vuelix cabinet | ### Topics - **Primary:** Home arcade products and innovation, Japanese candy cab culture and design, JAMA arcade board compatibility - **Secondary:** Arcade parts quality (Sanwa controls), Display technology for arcades (4x3 vs modern ratios), Arcade enthusiast use cases (testing, board swapping) - **Mentioned:** Trade show announcements and industry news ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.75) — RetroRalph is genuinely enthusiastic about the Nova Blast as an innovative product that differs meaningfully from existing home arcade offerings. However, sentiment is tempered by acknowledged uncertainty about many design details, pricing concerns, and some practical questions about functionality (control panel access, monitor orientation mechanism, console scaling on 4x3 display). ### Signals - **[market_signal]** Premium home arcade product targeting arcade enthusiasts with quality components (Sanwa controls, metal construction) (confidence: high) — RetroRalph notes Sanwa parts focus is unusual for home arcade companies and predicts premium pricing; identifies target audience as arcade professionals and enthusiasts - **[announcement]** Unico Nova Blast formally revealed at IAPA trade show as new Japanese-style candy cab for home market (confidence: high) — RetroRalph obtained promotional materials from IAPA trade show showing official specs and design renderings - **[product_concern]** Uncertainty about practical design implementation: control panel access mechanism, monitor orientation switching, 4x3 aspect ratio scaling with modern consoles (confidence: medium) — RetroRalph repeatedly acknowledges missing technical details and expresses concerns about how 16x9 modern consoles would scale on 4x3 display - **[sentiment_shift]** Novel arcade product category generating genuine enthusiasm in arcade enthusiast community after perceived stagnation in home arcade innovation (confidence: medium) — RetroRalph emphasizes lack of innovative home arcade products 'since inception' and positions Nova Blast as genuinely interesting departure - **[technology_signal]** Nova Blast represents departure from home arcade emulation model toward authentic arcade board support with JAMA compatibility (confidence: high) — RetroRalph explicitly contrasts Nova Blast with Arcade1Up and AtGames emulation approach, emphasizing JAMA board support as novel feature for home arcade market --- ## Transcript Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. There is no doubt that Japanese gaming culture has made its way into the United States over many years now. People will import consoles, they'll import the games themselves, they'll even import Japanese-style arcade cabinets. Those Japanese-style cabinets are called candy cabs. They're often made of metal or plastic versus the cabinets that we're used to here in the United States made from wood. They also sit down to play these games. Now, if you just wanna get an original candy cab, like a Vuelix, you can go through a company like I did Hadouken Arcade and they'll get you an original unit. They'll show you pictures. They'll tell you exactly what's wrong with it. They clean them up really nice, various different configurations, and then they'll ship them directly to your house door to door. So that's also an option. This is really interesting because Unico decided to come out with a product. Lately, Unico has been in the news because they made LCD replacements for CRTs. I have one. I haven't really made a video on it yet, but it's pretty interesting. You know, I'm more of a purist when it comes to arcade stuff. So I like to keep the CRTs intact and keep them repaired and up and running as long as I can. But for many arcade operators, they don't have the talented staff to do it sometimes. So they end up keeping a game running with an LCD. So they created a 26-inch replacement for what typically would be a 25-inch CRT tube. But anyways, they just released a product called the Unico Nova Blast, I think. Yeah, that's what it's called. It's on the thing back there it literally is brand new news so i couldn't remember but anyways so the nova blast is a japanese style candy cabinet that unico is putting out in the market they don't have pricing information for it yet but why i think it's interesting is not because it's some emulated device right it's not an emulator device like an arcade one-up or an at games legends ultimate it's not that it's actually a candy cab that does not have a pcb in it so you can put whatever you want just like a regular candy cab. That's actually what makes a candy cab really unique, is that you can change out the games quite frequently. And what maybe sparked my interest the most about this is that it supports JAMA So if you wanted to stick a JAMA board inside this device you can certainly do that I also was pretty interested because they decided to put Sanwa buttons and Sanwa sticks in this machine which we don really see these home arcade companies focusing on quality parts, which I thought was interesting. The other thing is, it's got a fairly large screen. It's got a 26 inch screen and it can actually present itself horizontally or vertically. So if you want to put it into tape mode, you can to play shmups. Now, just to even add to this and get it even more interesting, I don't know the exact details, but the encoder inside has support for consoles. Now, where this kind of falls off the train tracks a little bit for me, and again, I don't have all the information yet, is that it's a 4x3 26-inch monitor. So if you're going to put a modern console in it, like a PS5 or even like a past generation PS4 or something like that, or an Xbox or Xbox Series X, you know, those are 69 systems. So it would probably scale it down. I don't know how that would look exactly. But for any of the retro consoles, this would be a great product to have. And I immediately thought about how cool it would be to have a Mr. hooked up to something like this. If you're an arcade guy, then you are always probably trying to have some sort of test bench set up with a super gun device so you can actually run your arcade board without your arcade cabinet. Well, I was kind of thinking, well, how cool if the price is right, this thing could be something I test boards in, swap boards in and out of, and test different things, put Mr. in, and all sorts of cool things. So this is pretty neat because this to me is very different than the products that we're normally used to seeing on the home arcade market. This seems to be built at a different quality level, and also it's going to be fully metal for the most part. I'm assuming the control panel is probably plastic, but everything else seems like it's metal on the device it is going to have the ability to separate itself from the base unit so the base unit is actually going to have a cabinet inside just like a regular candy cab where you can actually put your consoles or your pc or whatever inside that you want to run on this thing it's also supposedly going to have a working coin door it looks like it's going to have a single coin slot all that stuff is pretty cool so to me this is very different than the the typical home arcade product I think it probably going to come at a premium price I going to my guess and speculation is probably between is probably between and I have no knowledge of that by the way I just getting random pieces of information and putting it together for you guys So this is what we know so far. I'm going to break it down one more time. The screen in it is a 26-inch screen, 4x3. I do not know what the resolution is going to be. Although on this flyer back here, they say 1440 by 1080 i don't know if that's that looks like it's some kind of promotional material from iapa the conference that just happened it's a trade show the trade show happens in florida every year it's an interesting trade show because this is really more toward family entertainment centers they have everything they have roller coaster rides they have ticket redemption games regular arcade games pinball machines it's it's basically a manufacturer's place for them to showcase all of the products they have for all these big FECs or places like Dave and Buster's and things like that to buy their products. Also mom and pops as well. I usually go to a smaller show called Amusement Expo International in Vegas every year, which is a small version of IAPA. But anyways, I digress. So this is what we know so far. It's a candy cab design. Kind of looks like a Sega Blast City sort of kind of design. That's or an Astro City. That's kind of what I feel like or a crossover of that and a Vuelix almost. And it does sit on a base. So you can have it as a base or a tabletop. And I believe you can order it that way if you want, if you don't want the base. So you can have it both ways. I'm not a huge fan of tabletop arcades. If I'm going to do a Japanese style, I like the traditional sit down. I actually have a Vuelix. I love the thing. I have it in my arcade room. It's running the Artax Multi on original hardware. It's pretty cool. But anyways, So then the monitor itself, 26 inches, it can be mounted horizontal or vertically. I don't know how you change that, but supposedly you can change it. They're going to offer two different topper versions. So the one John Youssi kind of resembles like an Astro City cabinet. They might have a different one because I did see some preliminary pictures that actually have a light on top, which kind of looks very similar to an Astro City cabinet. So that's kind of neat. I like the idea that has Sanwa buttons and joysticks. I don't know how you're going to gain access to the controls. It does look like one molded piece I not sure if it going to open up Like a Vuelix would have have a key underneath you can remove the control panel to work on it i don know that information yet this cabinet gonna have storage in it it gonna have the coin door um it i believe it gonna have wheels as well just like a traditional um like a viewlix would have so anyways it's uh it's cool as soon as i get more information i'll let you you know but i think what's interesting about it it to me is there hasn't really been an exciting and an innovative product in the home arcade space since I would say its inception. There hasn't been really anything that cool that you could put it to your game room, especially with JAMA support. It doesn't seem like that's ever really considered, and there's a lot of arcade enthusiasts that I think might be interested in a product like this, even though it deviates from what I would consider, you know, the purest viewpoint of things. One last thing I need to mention is availability. Right now, there is no pre-orders open for this, but I believe the pre-orders are going to start in the month of December. So as soon as I know that information, I will also provide that to you guys in the form of a video update or a community post. So be on the lookout for that. As soon as I get more information, I'll let you guys know. I've been constantly hitting up the guys at Unico. And I'm not a news guy. I don't really like rushing to... It's so stressful, man. I'm not about that. Rushing to the computer to make video. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. but I was like this is really cool if I didn't think it's cool I wouldn't make a video on it I think this is cool but keep in mind the caveat here is there's a lot of details I don't know take it at the surface level right now the stuff I'm getting right now sounds cool that could change and if it does or I find out some information I don't like or maybe stuff I want to critique I'll definitely maybe do a secondary video on it as we get more details but guys I'll have all the information that that I possibly can come up with in the links in the description of the video i hope you guys enjoyed it if you enjoyed it give me a thumbs up consider subscribing the channel and we will see you on the next one _(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 009b3061-5e6a-4315-8dce-130be1561bea*