R-Kaid 42 Wooden Retro Console for Nostalgic Gamers

Do you miss some nice joystick-driven arcade gaming like you used to enjoy back in the 1980s or ‘90s? Apparently you’re not the only one. A Swedish design company is trying to breathe new life into arcade gaming with an amazing two-player wooden retro console.

Love Hultén’s R-Kaid 42 (read Arcade for two) not only comes with 20,000 arcade gaming titles, but also has a very elegant design that makes it a beautiful addition to any home.

On the outside, the arcade system looks like an old wooden box skillfully crafted by hand. The 3x7x13 inch box is made of dark walnut and has some eye-catching brass fittings. The entire assembly is held together by strong magnets and it opens to reveal a console with two controllers.

The R-Kaid 42 is built around a regular PC rig that packs a CPU of 1.8 GHz, 4GB RAM and 32 or 64 GB of SSD storage, specs that should be more than enough to handle the 20,000 arcade titles dating back to the 80s or 90s. Designers did not specify the make and model of the CPU.

If you want to play a game, you will first have to unpack the unit from the wooden box state, but this process is very simple and takes little time. The R-Kaid 42 practically consists of four sections: the actual console, a storage area for various accessories and two joystick pads that are charged via USB.

The system is sold with a screwdriver, so you literally won’t need anything else to get going. With the accompanying screwdriver, you will be able to easily screw-in the joysticks to get the unit ready for action. Connect the arcade to a monitor or a TV set with the supplied video cable and you’re ready to go.

When you turn it on, the R-Kaid 42 displays an arcade interface with over 20,000 titles to choose from, for many hours of nostalgic, old-school gaming pleasure.

As expected, this retro gaming console that doubles as a handsome wooden art object has an impressive price tag of around $1,000. Which is a lot in an age where the latest gaming consoles cost less than half that sum. But the R-Kaid 42 is more than that, it is a beautifully wrapped gaming system that you buy for its sentimental value and won’t throw away when the next-gen model comes out.

What do you think of the R-Kaid 42? Would you buy this good looking wooden retro console?

[Images via joyme]