Lunar Lander Quarter Arcade – Atari's 1979 moon landing at a quarter of the size

By Ricardo de Jong ·

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Close-up of the lit orange Lunar Lander marquee on the quarter-scale arcade cabinet

I have landed many things badly. Paper planes. Pancakes. A joke at a wedding. A lunar module, though? That would take real skill, and about 450 units of fuel per quarter.

The Lunar Lander Quarter Arcade is a fully playable, quarter-scale wooden replica of Atari’s 1979 Lunar Lander cabinet. It’s made by Quarter Arcades (the Numskull brand from the UK), runs the original game, and has a working thrust lever. Quarter Arcades launched it in November 2025.

It’s a collector’s piece and a very hard game, about 18 inches tall.

Lunar Lander Quarter Arcade cabinet in black with orange marquee and blue lunar module side art

What is the Lunar Lander Quarter Arcade?

Lunar Lander came out in arcades in August 1979. It was Atari’s first vector graphics game. You steer a lunar module down to the surface and try to touch down softly on a flat spot before the fuel runs out. Smaller landing pads pay more points.

It never became a giant hit, and there’s a good reason. Asteroids came out three months later on the same vector hardware, and Atari stopped making Lunar Lander early to ship Asteroids instead. Wikipedia says the first 300 Asteroids machines even went out in Lunar Lander cabinets. So an original is rare, which makes this replica more fun.

Quarter Arcades lists these features:

  • quarter-scale wooden cabinet with the original side art and coin doors
  • illuminated marquee and buttons
  • analog thrust control lever
  • 5-inch full-color screen with a CRT-effect lens
  • 3W built-in speaker
  • the original game ROM running on its own emulator
  • USB-C power or an internal rechargeable battery

Atari’s shop lists it at 18 inches high, 6.3 inches wide and 7.8 inches deep.

How does the thrust lever work?

This is the whole point of Lunar Lander. The 1979 cabinet had a big handle that fired the thruster harder the further you pulled it. Earlier lunar lander games on computers only had on and off. Quarter Arcades rebuilt that lever in miniature, so you feather the throttle instead of tapping a button. The Cooltoy review on YouTube calls it a faithful copy and says the spring tension gets heavier as you push further.

The good and the not-so-good

What I like:

  • The thrust lever. A Lunar Lander with a button would miss the point.
  • A real, officially licensed Atari cabinet that fits on a shelf.
  • The battery means you can carry it to the couch.
  • It’s a conversation piece even when switched off.

What could be better:

  • It’s one game. About 320 bucks for one game is a lot of money.
  • The screen is a 5-inch LCD, while the original drew its lines on a vector monitor. The CRT lens helps, but it’s not the same glow.
  • One player only.
  • No big written reviews yet. Most of the coverage is on YouTube.

Who is the Lunar Lander Quarter Arcade for?

Collectors, space nerds, and the person in your life who still has a NASA poster from 1985. It’s a great gift for someone with a game room or a home office shelf that needs one weird, glowing thing.

Skip it if you want lots of games for the money. The Atari Gamestation Go packs a huge library into one handheld, and the NBA Jam Countercade is a cheaper tabletop arcade for two players. Quarter Arcades fans might also like the TMNT Turtles in Time Quarter Arcade from the same maker.

Where can I buy the Lunar Lander Quarter Arcade?

It’s on Amazon US for about 320 bucks at the time of writing (October 2026). There’s also a Collector’s Edition with a poster and a wall light.

The Eagle has landed. On my desk. Take my money.