Guide
Is the Arcade1Up Infinity Game Table Worth It?
It is worth it for board-game nights with mixed ages and small rooms. It is not an arcade machine, and buying it as one is where the disappointment comes from.
How these picks were made: from published manufacturer specifications, governing-body standards and the room arithmetic - not from first-hand use. We have not played on these tables. Read the method.
The Infinity Game Table is worth it if what you want is a digital board-game table for a household with a mixed age range and no space for a dedicated games table. It is not worth it if you wanted an arcade machine - it is a different product that happens to sit in the same aisle and carry the same brand. Before buying, check the current game library against the titles your household actually plays, because the library is the whole value proposition and the hardware is a screen in a table.
What it is, stated plainly
It is a touchscreen in a table-shaped housing, loaded with digital versions of board and card games. People sit around it, the board is on the screen, and the rules, the scoring and the setup are handled by the software. Arcade1Up makes it, and Arcade1Up is otherwise known for arcade cabinets, which is the source of nearly every mismatched expectation about it.
Read it as a piece of furniture that replaces the stack of board game boxes in the cupboard, not as a games console and not as an arcade cabinet. On that reading, its strengths and its limits both make immediate sense.
Who it suits
- Households with a wide age range. Everyone is seated, so nobody is too short to reach the controls - the single biggest practical problem with putting a full-height arcade cabinet in a family room.
- Rooms with no floor to spare. It occupies the footprint of a side table rather than the footprint of a game table plus clearance.
- Families who lose pieces. A digital board game cannot lose a piece, and that is not a trivial benefit in a house with small children.
- People who want the setup to be instant. No board, no shuffling, no reading the rules aloud, no packing away at the end.
Who should buy something else
Anyone who wanted arcade games. A countercade or a full-height cabinet is cheaper and does what was actually being asked for. The countercade roundup covers the small-footprint options and the home cabinet roundup the full-height ones.
Households that want a physical game to put on a table. A 54-inch multi-game table gives seven physical formats for a wide age range, with nothing to update and nothing that can leave support. The multi-game table page covers what those tables really contain.
Anyone whose main criterion is value per game. A digital table's library is the product, and libraries change: titles are added, licensed titles can leave, and some content is sold separately. If you need to know exactly what you own for the next ten years, a physical table is the format that guarantees it.
| Format | Players at once | Height problem | Content risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital game table | Several, seated | None - everyone sits | Library can change over time |
| Multi-game table, 54 in | Two to four, standing | Standing, but low frame | None - it is physical |
| Countercade | One | Set by what it stands on | Fixed list, three games |
| Full-height cabinet | One or two | Needs about 4 ft 6 in of player | Fixed list, around 14 games |
The table, and the two things people compare it with
#1 · Board game nights, mixed ages
Arcade1Up Infinity Game Table
A digital board-game table rather than an arcade cabinet. Worth knowing about before you buy a 3-in-1 for family nights.
A digital board-game table rather than an arcade cabinet. Worth knowing about before you buy a 3-in-1 for family nights, because it solves a different problem: everyone sits, several people play at once, and no pieces get lost. Judge it on the game library rather than on the hardware, because the library is the product.
- What works
- Seated play, so a child and an adult are on equal terms
- Several players at once rather than one player and a queue
- No pieces, no setup, no pack-away
- What does not
- Not an arcade machine, and nobody expecting one is satisfied by it
- Value rests entirely on which titles are actually included
#2 · The no-screen alternative
Hathaway Matrix 54-in 7-in-1 Multi Game Table
Seven games on a 54-inch frame. Expect seven short games rather than one good one — that is the honest trade.
Seven games on a 54-inch frame. Expect seven short games rather than one good one - that is the honest trade, and it is the direct physical alternative to a digital table for the same family-night job. Nothing to update, nothing to subscribe to, and a lot of small pieces to keep track of.
- What works
- No screen, no power, nothing to go out of support
- Seven formats for a wide age range
- What does not
- Every game is a scaled-down version of itself
- Small pieces are what make it work, and they get lost
#3 · If what you wanted was an arcade
Arcade1Up PAC-MAN Countercade
Three PAC-MAN games on a 7-inch LCD with full-size controls, sized for a countertop. The footprint is the feature.
Three PAC-MAN games on a 7-inch LCD with full-size controls, sized for a countertop. If the reason you were looking at a game table was that someone in the house wants arcade games, this is the cheaper and much more direct answer - and the footprint is the feature.
- What works
- Actually an arcade cabinet, with full-size controls
- Fits on a counter and moves in one hand
- What does not
- Three games, fixed
- Single set of controls, so one player at a time
Skip it if: the goal was a shared, seated family game. A countercade is a one-player machine.
Practical things to settle before ordering
- Where it lives, powered. It is a screen, so it needs an outlet within reach and a cord route that is not across a floor children run on. The power and placement page covers planning that.
- Seating. Four people seated around a low table need four seats and the floor space for them, which is more room than the table's own footprint suggests.
- Whether it will be used as a table. A screen as a tabletop invites drinks, plates and homework. Decide now whether that is acceptable in your house.
- Who is actually asking for it. If a child asked for an arcade machine, this is not it, and it is worth having that conversation before the box arrives.
The honest summary
Judged as a digital board-game table for a family room, it does something no other product on this site does: it puts four people of any height around the same game in the footprint of a side table, with no setup and nothing to lose. That is a real and specific benefit, and for the households it fits, it is the right purchase.
Judged as an arcade machine, it fails, because it is not one. Nearly all the disappointment attached to it comes from that single category error rather than from the product. Work out which of the two things you were shopping for, and the answer follows.
What we checked, and what we did not
The format description and comparisons here are structural - what a seated digital table does differently from a standing cabinet - and the specifications named for the comparison products are the manufacturers' published figures. We have not used these machines, we publish no ratings or scores, and we deliberately do not list a game count for a content-led device, because that list changes and a number printed here would go stale. Check the current library on the listing before buying.
