Hard to believe, but 2026 marks ten years since we founded New Wave Toys.
Our original vision for the company was simple – To make the things we wished we had as kids.
We set out to capture the essence of those objects in replica form – arcade machines, boomboxes, and others – in a way that would make us feel the same way we did when we first saw, touched, and listened to them.
We started with the first entry in our Replicade line: a 1:6 scale, fully functioning replica of a Centipede arcade machine. We thought why not jump into the deep end and make something so small and so detailed that no one would believe it actually played?
Early company pitch deck foreshadowing where we were headed.
Once we saw the first prototype, we were hooked – and by our reckoning, so were many of you.
From there, it became about how far we could take it. How many details could we include and still make these machines practical – and affordable – to produce?
That question has guided just about every decision we’ve made since. It also sparked more than a few debates along the way.
Did we really need to include a working drawer in the back of our Dragon’s Lair x Replicade, complete with a miniature laserdisc player and a tiny disc? The answer, ultimately, was yes. That detail became a “surprise and delight” moment in more demos than we can count.
Was there a way to faithfully reproduce a full 2-player control panel for our Street Fighter II Replicade? Not really – but that constraint led to the creation of our micro controller. Not exactly original, but it worked, and people connected with it.
And on it went. Each machine forced us to decide what was essential to get right, even if it made things more complicated.
Over time, that turned into a pattern.
With each new release, we tried to carry something forward. Some ideas were there from the beginning, like including a small bag of prop mini tokens with every Replicade. Others took time to figure out – like adding actual coin operation, which didn’t make it into the line until our replica Coke Machine mini fridges.
When we shifted into audio, the same thinking applied.
Our initial M90 prototype included a micro SD card reader hidden inside the cassette deck, along with faux mini cassettes that acted as adapters. It worked… briefly. After breaking the prototype on day two, we realized it was going to be a customer support problem waiting to happen. The SD reader was moved to the back, but the micro cassettes and the functional cassette door stayed.
And so here we are, ten years in, looking back at what we’ve built and thinking about what comes next.
What we know is this:
We’ve developed a point of view on the things that made those original machines special. Not just how they looked, but how they felt to use, and why they stuck with us.
For us, it’s about capturing that feeling in a form that fits today – without losing what made it worth revisiting in the first place.
That idea really hasn’t changed over the last ten years – and we hope to keep exploring it over the next ten.
Out of curiosity – what’s something you wished you had as a kid? One of those things you saw, heard, or spent time around, but never actually had at home.
An arcade machine?
A boombox or stereo?
A physical game?
Something else?
Let us know – we’re taking notes.
– The New Wave Toys Team