Is Polycade the future of Arcade gaming?

RetroRalph·video·9m 45s·analyzed·May 5, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.018

TL;DR

Polycade releases free DIY arcade software with Steam integration and custom encoder boards for cabinet builders.

Summary

RetroRalph reviews Polycade's DIY software kit, which allows free installation on personal computers with Steam integration, ROM support, and custom Brooks encoder boards for arcade cabinet building. The platform auto-discovers Steam games and supports multiple emulated platforms (Arcade, Atari, Genesis, N64, GameCube, etc.), offering a simpler alternative to RetroPi for home arcade builders.

Key Claims

Polycade software is available for free installation as a DIY kit
high confidence · Demonstrated throughout video with actual installation and usage
Polycade integrates with Steam, GOG, and their own application store
high confidence · Host explicitly shows Steam integration discovering games automatically
Brooks encoder boards for Polycade maintain hardware-level player order to avoid controller swap issues common with cheaper encoders
high confidence · Host explains technical advantage: 'What's cool about this is it has hardware level player order'
Polycade supports ROMs from multiple platforms: Arcade, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Genesis, Master System, N64
high confidence · Host shows actual folder structure and lists supported platforms
Nolan Bushnell's son spearheaded the Polycade project
high confidence · Host states: 'This is Nolan Bushnell's son. So the founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, his son is the one that spearheaded this project.'

Notable Quotes

“What's cool about this is it has hardware level player order. So it's set on here. You set this one as player one, you set this one as player two, you run these encoder boards to your arcade buttons and joysticks, and they'll always stay as player one and player two.”
RetroRalph@ 1:23 — Explains key technical advantage of Brooks encoders over standard solutions
“This is the directory you navigate to. So once Polycade is installed you go to users your name of your computer app data roaming Polycade The Games.”
RetroRalph@ 2:20 — Provides specific technical instructions for ROM installation
“I find this really cool as a platform to use on an arcade cabinet because the Steam integration is really neat. And like I said, there's a lot of cool Steam games you might want to play on an arcade cabinet.”
RetroRalph@ 5:38 — Host's positive assessment of the platform's unique value proposition
“This kind of reminds me of what the iiArcade that at home arcade platform should be. If they had followed this path, I think it would have been a lot more successful than it is today.”
RetroRalph@ 7:25 — Comparative market analysis suggesting Polycade's approach is superior to iiArcade's
“I think the fact that they allow their software to be freeware and DIY like this is really damn cool.”
RetroRalph@ 9:03 — Host's summative praise for Polycade's business model and accessibility

Entities

PolycadecompanyRetroRalphpersonNolan BushnellpersonSteamcompanyGOGcompanyBrookscompanyRetroPiproductiiArcadeproductLaunchBoxproductBigBoxproduct

Signals

$
market_signal: Polycade positioning free DIY software as complement to premium hardware cabinets, differentiating business model from pure hardware manufacturers
high · Host notes: 'Not only do you have this as the DIY option, you can buy their full cabinets. Like I said, they're very expensive, so if you're looking for like a real swanky arcade that has a really cool front end, you could do that.'
~
sentiment_shift: Host's comparison suggests Polycade's model is superior to iiArcade's historical approach, indicating market preference for open, flexible, accessible arcade platforms
medium · 'This kind of reminds me of what the iiArcade that at home arcade platform should be. If they had followed this path, I think it would have been a lot more successful than it is today.'
?
technology_signal: Brooks encoder boards with hardware-level player order addressing long-standing technical issue with cheaper USB encoder solutions in DIY arcade builds
high · Host explains problem: 'sometimes you'll reboot the machine and those USB interfaces will come up differently. What's cool about this is it has hardware level player order.'
?
technology_signal: Polycade introducing free DIY software kit with Steam integration represents shift toward accessible arcade cabinet platforms with multi-store game discovery
high · Host emphasizes simplicity: 'This is something where you can build it yourself, put the games on that you want. So it's a very customized build and you can run it as either a console or on your arcade cabinet.'

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.029

0:00

What we're going to look at today is the Polycade. So you're probably familiar with the Polycade as these really expensive arcade cabinets you can put into your house or business. They're really expensive. They're thousands and thousands of dollars. But what happened just recently, it wasn't that long ago, they actually let you install the software from a DIY kit perspective and it doesn't cost you anything. This is the interface right here. It's really cool because it integrates with Steam as well as GOG, as well as their own application store and you can add ROMs to it as well. So what you're looking at right now is just me navigating through the main interface. So Broforce happens to be a game I have on Steam. It automatically comes up. There's a game here that is part of their store. I can click on it and this one actually they offer for free so you can go and download it. There's also leaderboards on some of the games as well. So it's really neat. It's a really neat interface. Now I'm navigating it with a 8-bit DOH controller but what's really cool and they just added this more recently is they have support for these Brooks encoders. These are custom Brooks encoders for the Polycade. If you want to create an arcade cabinet and a DIY kind of a thing, and you want to use like a Raspberry Pi, you'll often be using one of the front ends like a RetroPi or something like that. And sometimes you'll use these run-of-the-mill basic encoder boards and player one and player two or player three and player four, they'll swap because you'll reboot the machine and those USB interfaces will come up differently. What's cool about this is it has hardware level player order. So it's set on here. You set this one as player one, you set this one as player two, you run these encoder boards to your arcade buttons and joysticks, and they'll always stay as player one and player two. It's kind of a problem that happens sometimes when you use these cheaper encoders with an emulation solution, so it's really cool. These are definitely something new that they just came out with not that long ago. I'll have links in the description to these controller boards. I don't have it in an arcade cabinet right now. I'm navigating it with just an 8-bit DOHC controller, but they also sell if you wanted to run this machine or this interface as just a standalone like a console in your entertainment system or whatever they have a polycade 8-bit doe bluetooth controller it's the bluetooth version of this one so it's wireless so anyways there's there you can run this system in an arcade cabinet or you know using a controller which is cool but what i really like about it is number one the adding of the roms so you can add they have support for quite a bit i'm I gonna actually exit out of the interface really quick so you guys can see exactly what I talking about This is the directory you navigate to So once Polycade is installed you go to users your name of your computer app data roaming Polycade games And you see there all these folders. Arcade is the one I've put arcade ROMs into, but these are the supported platforms right now. So you have arcade Atari 2600, Atari 7800. You have GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Genesis, Master System N64. So for instance, if I wanted to add some Genesis games, I could just go right into this Genesis folder. I've got a couple in here. These are actually ones I think it comes with that are free. So I have just Genesis ROMs folder right here and I have, of course, Streets of Rage 2, right? So I'm going to copy this into that folder. I'm using this really janky keyboard. I'm going to paste it here. The next time I launch Polycade, those games will be there or I can actually search for them. So I'm going to reopen Polycade and you're going to see when you reopen the software it checks for updates it checks for new games if they're supported format it's just going to add those to that main splash screen which is really cool and you can you can um go in and and parse them different ways so you can say filter just these consoles or these systems so it makes it really easy to navigate and it's all meant to be navigated with a controller or joystick and button so i added streets of rage so let's see we're going to go up to platforms i'm going to hit genesis and you'll see it didn't add streets of rage cool so uh that didn't work That you know and they ask you how you are you just have to say that you're fine when you're not really fine But you just can't get into it because they would never understand

3:52

Not really sure exactly what main version they're using because it seems like some of the main ROMs I try to use don't work, but here it is streets of rage. So you can play this console game on here No problem and you know add your console ROMs to this thing, too So if you want to play, you know Like I said if you want to use this as a console you totally can a lot of people might want to use it as a console. Looks great, plays great, and you have a lot of flexibility to use it however you want. Now, I did notice most of the buttons are mapped actually correctly. This one looks like it's mapped a little weird, so you can go in and change that after. But anyway, so you can get the point. You can run a console ROM now. If I exit out of the game, you can actually exit from the controller. You hit this little button right here, this one right here, and it'll say exit game. So in the Polymega version of it, it looks slightly different. Polymega. The Polycade version of it. Polymega, that's never coming out. So there we go. So that gives us, that's how you do that. Now what's really interesting to me is I gonna exit out of Polycade altogether and I have a pretty extensive Steam library So there a lot of arcade type titles on Steam Like you can play modern games like the newer Killer Instinct So I going to open up Steam real quick so you can see my Steam library And what you'll notice is anything I've downloaded to my machine will actually be visible to me in Polycade automatically. You don't have to map anything. You don't have to copy anything anywhere. You just need Steam installed before you install the Polycade software. And you can just go right to the Polycade website to install it. Like I said, it's all free. They don't charge you for that. They do have games that you can license, like I said, from their store and you will pay for those. So for instance, I have the Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures game. So what I'm going to do is you see that I have it, you see that it's installed. So I'm going to go back to Polycade, relaunch Polycade, and you'll see that Angry Video Game Nerd game just pops up. It automatically discovers that you don't have to do anything. So I find this really cool as a platform to use on an arcade cabinet because the Steam integration is really neat. And like I said, there's a lot of cool Steam games you might want to play on an arcade cabinet. With these new encoder boards, this really is a really cool option for people. And I find it super simple. They haven't made it difficult to use at all. So there's the Angry Video Game Nerd Game. Now, you'll look through the list of games I already have downloaded. There's some other Steam games I brought. I have Final Fight in there. I put Final Fight into the arcade folder, right, because that's an arcade ROM. But we'll look right here. I have NARC, Pac-Man Championship. that's actually a Steam game. So I'll go and launch that real quick so you can see how that works. But yeah, there's a lot of possibilities with something like this. And what I think I like about it is some users find a lot of these other options difficult or they're fiddling with lots of different Raspberry Pi images. This is something where you can build it yourself, put the games on that you want. So it's a very customized build and you can run it as either a console or on your arcade cabinet. So I'll show you how this plays really quick. I am direct capturing this and I'm using a rather underpowered PC to run it right now. You don't really need a whole lot. I'll put the specs in the PC I have right now. There's really not a lot to the PC I have. It doesn't even have a, it has like an integrated graphics card. It doesn't have like an independent graphics card. Start playing your games right now and it'll fully integrate in your controller. All the buttons will map automatically. Most games I found that the buttons map automatically and you don't really have to even do anything. I find this to be a really cool solution. And obviously there's like more thorough things like big box and launch box. But if you looking for something cool easy to use and then you can be part of the the polycade ecosystem in a sense in a way that you know what this kind of reminds me of I hate to say this because I almost feel like this is way more feature rich than that This kind of reminds me of what the iiArcade that at home arcade platform should be. If they had followed this path, I think it would have been a lot more successful than it is today. So I'm gonna exit out of this game. You can see right now it has my, because it's integrated with Steam, you can see my high scores and stuff, but I'm gonna exit out of this. running this on a pretty modest B-Link PC. It's got a Radeon graphics like built in. I can't remember which version it is but it's not like the beefiest thing ever. But you can run things like Streets of Rage 4, Shredder's Revenge, Ultra Street Fighter 4, you know the Cowabunga collection, like stuff that's more modern. It actually, I'm gonna find out what's really funny is they've licensed Street Fighter the movie. You get that game for free. I really like that game. A lot of people talk smack on it. But yeah if I want to play Streets of Rage 4 on this, boom and and I'm running it on a really small PC but this is a game that a lot of people wish they could play on an arcade cabinet and you totally can you all you need is to get one of these controller boards and set it up and you can play this all day long so pretty cool and that's kind of all I wanted to cover with it today it's it's pretty simple it's pretty easy I'll eventually cover it and deeper detail, but I think if you're looking to build a cabinet or buy a DIY kit, this is a really cool option for that. And just a little background, this is Nolan Bushnell's son. So the founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, his son is the one that spearheaded this project. So not only do you have this as the DIY option, you can buy their full cabinets. Like I said, they're very expensive, so if you're looking for like a real swanky arcade that has a really cool front end, you could do that. But I think the fact that they allow their software to be freeware and DIY like this is pretty damn cool. So anyways, if you have questions about this, put it in the comments below. I think you should definitely check this out. This Polycade stuff is very cool and they're going to great lengths to make it, you know, simple and easy for the end user. So anyways, that's it for now, guys. We will see you on the next one.