About Us

I’ve spend my free time (and every penny I could find) in the arcades during the 80’s and 90’s. So when Capcom released Street Fighter 4 in 2009 I knew that it had to be played with an arcadestick.
Looking at the available arcadesticks at that moment I realized that the only good option was to build my own. I could then use Sanwa parts that were used in the arcade-machines in Japan and even use a PCB to make it compatible with both the XBox360 and PS3.
But importing the parts from Japan and having a wooden box built was expensive in small orders. So i decided to order multiple, sell what I didn’t need and build my own with the margin by selling them through Shadaloo.eu. The website featured a configurator that allowed buyers to customize the build in 12 steps.
Posting the arcadesticks that I had built for some customers on forums like SRK went viral and the orders kept coming in. At about 150 arcadestick I realized that I had to step up my game.

Knowing that the original arcade machines that Street Fighter 4 was played on was the Taito Vewlix I decided to order 1. The first one was a from China and after 9 machines i was fed up with the Chinese traders and the lesser quality of the product.
I had to find a way to get my hands on the real Vewlix cabinets from Japan and started looking. In 2012 we imported our first container load from Japan and started offering cabinets with upgrades.
The logistics of importing a full container load was a new adventure but after finding a workshop and storage space we were ready for more.

After 7 years of importing, exporting and collecting arcade machines we accumulated a large collection of arcade machines. The one missing piece was the addition of about 30 dedicated american arcades. After a successful auction in the US we shipped 2 container loads to our warehouse.
Everything was in play to start our own arcade venue Blast Galaxy in Amsterdam.
The initial venue was a 400m2 warehouse in the north of Amsterdam, 85 machines, a bar and kitchen.
Unfortunately the focus had to shift away from Shadaloo, so we had to close the shop for a while.

The location was based on a 12 month rental contract. So needless to say we started looking for a new location from day 1. That turned out to be a long and bumpy road. 2 years after opening we were still at the first location and Covid hit us. We had to close our doors but we werekept alive with government funds. Knowing that we did have to move at some point we kept on looking and found a new location in 2023.
We opened up after the pandemic and started changing an 1750m2 old plastic factory into the ultimate arcade venue. 1250m2 inside, 500m2 outside terrace, 3 private karaoke rooms, a dedicated 12 player Mario Kart setup, 125 arcade machines and a kitchen and bar.