Hasta La Gadget!

The iCade, originally an April Fool’s joke by ThinkGeek, is finally here – almost. The iPad arcade cabinet finally has a release date: May 11th. The device will start shipping on May 10th, and if you have to be first in line or get one shipped to your home on release day, you can pre-order it now for $99.99 retail price.  The iCade uses Bluetooth to connect to the iPad, and supports both the original iPad and the iPad 2.

If you do buy one, you’ll also want to pick up a copy of Atari’s Greatest Hits in the iTunes App Store – at the moment it’s the only game (although it’s actually a collection of over 100 classic Atari games) to fully support the iCade. ThinkGeek and Ion have partnered to build the arcade cabinet and to produce an API that app developers can use to make their games compatible.