R-Kaid-42 is a bespoke two-player wooden retro console produced by Swedish design company Love Hultén. Built around a custom PC rig, the unit assembles into an unassuming piece of furniture for easy storage, and boasts over 20,000 playable titles taken from the so-called “golden age” of arcade gaming in the 1980s and 90s.
When the R-Kaid-42 is in box-form, it looks vaguely like an old-fashioned radio and measures 8 x 18 x 35 cm (3 x 7 x 13 in). If the user wants to play a game, the unit is first disassembled into four sections: the console itself, two old-school wireless joystick pads (charged via USB sockets on the back of the unit), and a storage area for accessories.
To get the R-Kaid-42 fully operational from its box state, you’ll need to make use of the provided screwdriver and screw-in the brass joystick shafts, but the process is said to be quick and painless. A TV or monitor will also need to connected to the base via the supplied retro video cable. Once powered on, the system boots into an arcade interface with a selection of over 20,000 games from various classic systems.
At the heart of R-Kaid-42 beats a custom PC rig running an unspecified 1.8 GHz CPU, a choice of 32 or 64 GB SSD storage, and 4GB of RAM – all of which should be up to the job of handling games well into their second and third decades of existence.
Predictably, such a bespoke unit commands a suitably bespoke price, and the R-Kaid-42 will set you back from €790 (roughly US$1,000) and upwards, depending on options chosen.
