One Cabinet, Three Obsessions: Meet the Xtension 32″ Vertical Arcade Machine

Some of us never left the arcade. We just ran out of room for it.

If your heart beats faster for vertical shoot-em-ups, your weekends disappear into horizontal classics, and you’ve priced out a real pinball machine only to discover you don’t have the floor space for one — Rec Room Masters just built the cabinet you’ve been waiting for. The Xtension 32″ Vertical Arcade Machine is on sale now at $880 and starts shipping next week. It’s the most versatile thing we’ve ever put in a box.

Built for vertical, friendly to horizontal

The whole point of a vertical cabinet is screen presence. A 32-inch display in vertical orientation gives shoot-em-ups and vertical scrollers the towering playfield they were designed for — no more squinting at a letterboxed strip floating in the middle of a widescreen.

But here’s what usually kills vertical cabs: half your library is horizontal. The Xtension Vertical handles that with a generous 4:3 viewing area, so horizontal classics still play comfortably. Best of both worlds, one compact cabinet.

Why vertical? A 40-year love story

Here’s a secret: the vertical screen is older than most of the people reading this.

Space Invaders (1978) set the template — fixed overhead view, enemies raining down a tall screen. Then came the golden run: Pac-Man (1980), Donkey Kong (1981), Galaga, Dig Dug, Frogger, 1942, Xevious. Donkey Kong is the best story: Nintendo had a warehouse full of unsold Radar Scope cabinets outside Seattle, and a young Shigeru Miyamoto was told to make a game that ran on the existing hardware — vertical monitor included. He invented the platformer to fill those cabinets, and 60,000 of them sold in the US.

The Japanese shoot-’em-up masters took the tall screen and ran with it: Toaplan’s Batsugun, Cave’s DoDonPachi (1997), Ikaruga (2001). In Japan, “tate” — literally “vertical” — mode became a whole culture, players physically rotating monitors 90 degrees to play shmups the way they were meant to be seen.

That’s the lineage this cabinet plugs into. Forty-plus years of games designed for exactly this shape of screen.

Pinball without the pinball machine

This is the part that made us sit up. Add the Pinball Topbox and you get a proper three-screen virtual pinball setup: the 32-inch vertical playfield, plus a 7-inch DMD and a 13-inch backglass — both monitors included with the Topbox, pre-assembled, with HDMI cables and adapters in the box. It runs Visual Pinball, Future Pinball, Pinball FX, PinUP Popper, and the like.

A real pinball machine is a beautiful, enormous, back-breaking commitment. This is virtual pinball in a fraction of the footprint — about 23 inches wide — at a fraction of the cost. The controller even has you covered: four side pinball buttons for the flippers and a front launch button for the plunger.

The pinball machine you can actually fit (and afford)

Let’s be honest about real pinball machines: they’re incredible, and they’re also enormous, heavy, and priced like a used car. Most of us don’t have the floor space or the budget.

That’s the whole point of this cabinet. The Pinball Topbox turns the Xtension Vertical into a proper three-screen virtual pinball setup — 32-inch playfield, 7-inch DMD, 13-inch backglass — in about 23 inches of width, at a price that doesn’t require a second mortgage. Same flipper buttons, same launch button, same late-night “one more game” energy.

Don’t take our word for it — here’s an independent review putting the actual cabinet through its paces, from assembly to gameplay to virtual pinball:

And here’s the part people miss: this isn’t a pinball machine that happens to play other games. It’s a full arcade cabinet — vertical shmups, horizontal classics, and pinball, all on the same screen, all looking great. Pinball is one of three obsessions, not the whole story.

The controller situation

Two options. The Standard 2-player controller ships with authentic Sanwa JLF joysticks, six action buttons per player, admin buttons, and an IPAC encoder that switches between keyboard, DirectInput, and XInput. It’s pre-configured for MAME out of the box and connects over USB to PC, Mac, Raspberry Pi, Pandora’s Box, or MiSTer FPGA. If you still need the PC to power it all, Arcade One sells pre-configured gaming PCs with the software to play the games, built to drop straight into an arcade cabinet.

The Plus version is, frankly, stacked: an RGB trackball and spinner, an auto-switching 4-to-8-way restrictor on player one (Pac-Man one minute, Street Fighter the next, no screwdriver required), removable joystick shafts, and even a steering-wheel spinner attachment for driving games.

Small footprint, serious build

At 22 7/8″ wide and 24 3/8″ deep, it fits where a real pinball machine never could. It stands 68 7/8″ tall (84 1/8″ with the Topbox) and weighs 95 lbs. It ships flat-packed via UPS Ground to the US and Canada, and assembles with easy video instructions. You supply the 32″ VESA-mount monitor or TV — everything else is in the box, including a blank metal coin door (with a cutout available if you want a real coin mech).

What to play first

Unboxed, assembled, monitor mounted. Now what? A starter list:

• Vertical royalty: Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Galaga, 1942, Dig Dug — the games this orientation was born for.
• Shmup school: Raiden, Ikaruga, DoDonPachi — start on easy, thank us later.
• Horizontal night: Street Fighter II, Metal Slug, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — the 4:3 area handles them all.
• Pinball after dark: Fire up the Topbox, kill the lights, and lose two hours to a table you never played in real life.

And the Plus controller (find it under the vertical cabinet on our site) is the other half of the versatility story — trackball for Centipede and Missile Command, spinner for Tempest and Arkanoid, and an auto-switching 4-to-8-way joystick that goes from Pac-Man to Street Fighter with no screwdriver. One controller, every genre.

Who’s it for?

• Shmup and vertical-scroller devotees tired of compromised displays
• Pinball dreamers without the space or budget for the real thing
• Anyone whose library spans vertical, horizontal, and pinball — which is to say, almost everyone running an emulation setup

The Xtension 32″ Vertical Arcade Machine is $880, on sale now, and starts shipping next week.

Frequently asked questions

Does it play horizontal games too, or only vertical?

Both. Vertical games get the full 32-inch vertical display; horizontal games play in a generous 4:3 viewing area.

Is the monitor included?

No — you supply any 32″ VESA-mount flat screen monitor or TV. Four M4 mounting screws and washers are included.

What do I need for virtual pinball?

The Pinball Topbox add-on. It comes pre-assembled with the 7-inch DMD and 13-inch backglass monitors, plus HDMI cables and adapters. It works with Visual Pinball, Future Pinball, Pinball FX, PinUP Popper, and similar software.

What’s the difference between the Standard and Plus controllers?

The Plus adds an RGB trackball, a spinner, an auto-switching 4-to-8-way joystick, removable joystick shafts, and a steering-wheel attachment. Both versions have Sanwa joysticks, an IPAC encoder, and keyboard/DirectInput/XInput modes.

How big is it?

22 7/8″ wide × 24 3/8″ deep × 68 7/8″ tall (84 1/8″ with the Topbox). It weighs 95 lbs.

When does it ship?

Orders are open now and shipping starts next week, via UPS Ground to the US and Canada.

What games are best on a vertical cabinet?

The classics built for tall screens: Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Dig Dug, Frogger, 1942, Xevious — plus the whole shoot-’em-up catalog (Raiden, Ikaruga, DoDonPachi). Horizontal games still play great in the 4:3 viewing area, and the Pinball Topbox add-on covers virtual pinball.