There are arcade cabinets, and then there are arcade cabinets that make you think it’s too old to be an arcade cabinet. Say hello to Computer Space, and one of the rarest versions ever produced is now heading under the hammer.

Former Shiny Entertainment boss David Perry is selling his green two-player Computer Space machine, a 1973 revision of the game widely regarded as the first commercially released arcade video game. Perry says he is simply running out of space, which is probably the sort of problem I would be quite happy to inherit if my collection included something looking quite this magnificent. It makes you wonder what else he’s hoarding, even if he never actually plays this, because, well, it was a bit weird.

Computer Space originally appeared in 1971, created by future Atari founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney through Syzygy Engineering and manufactured by Nutting Associates. Inspired by the influential 1962 game Spacewar!, it asked players to pilot a rocket and battle flying saucers, although its controls proved a little too complicated for an audience that had effectively never encountered a commercial video game before.

I ran out of space and am selling my Computer Space arcade machine at auction (two-player). It's probably the rarest arcade game in existence, found in museums.https://t.co/ZhwPKMGbYl pic.twitter.com/7J90fcMTm3

— David Perry (@dperry) August 11, 2026

The two-player version followed in 1973 and replaced the original machine’s rotational controls with a pair of joysticks. More importantly for anybody who likes their gaming hardware to look completely bonkers, it retained that extraordinary moulded fibreglass cabinet, with Perry’s example finished in glorious metallic green sparkle. It looks less like an arcade machine and more like something you’d expect to find on a Gerry Anderson set.

Working examples are exceptionally difficult to find. The auction listing describes Perry’s machine as largely original, with only minor scuffing to the cabinet, and says the unit powers up with a functioning display. The auction is scheduled to run until August 21, and right now the top bid sits just under $7k. For some indication of where things could end up, a more common blue single-player Computer Space previously sold through the same auction house for $69,000.

So, yes, this is almost certainly going to end up considerably outside my arcade-machine budget. But as pieces of gaming history go, it is difficult to think of many machines that combine historical importance with quite so much wonderfully ridiculous early-’70s futurism. I want it badly, who’s with me on crowdfunding it (but I keep it in my shed?).

I met David once in Santa Monica, and if I’d known he had this I’d probably be doing time for kidnap.

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