We just wanted to play Galaga at our desk, but ended up spending a couple grand on an armful of cheap Plug n' Plays, a crappy ARCADE 1UP  CollectorCade, an overpriced (but awesome) 1/6 scale NEW WAVE TOYS Replicade and three similarly well-made, but much larger Quarter Arcades from NUMSKULL. 

We said we were done, but Numskull announced that it was finally shipping its highly-anticipated SPACE INVADERS and SPACE INVADERS II 1/4 scale arcade cabinets, so we hustled on over to Amazon and scooped one up on Saturday. Five hours later, they were sold out. At press time, Amazon had both cabinets back in stock, but now they won't arrive until after the Christmas holiday and ours has yet to ship.

At $300, the 21-inch tall SPACE INVADERS Numskull Quarter Arcades are definitely collector's items, not toys, but compared to what we paid for our Pac-Man ($227 used), Galaxian ($397 new), Ms. Pac-Man ($446 new) from Numskull and Centipede ($596 new) from New Wave Toys on eBay, it felt like a steal. 

Now let's hope it arrives.