ThinkGeek is celebrating this year’s Black Friday event by slashing the price of its popular iCade arcade cabinet for the iPad. The accessory would make the perfect Christmas gift for iPad owners who love retro gaming, and for a limited time only, it’s down from $99.99 to just $59.99.

I’ve been in the blogging-in-my-underpants business for a long time now, and over the years, one of the only things that has been an immutable law is that the long-awaited iControlPad for iPhone will always be just on the cusp of release.

So imagine the way my whole world flipped topsy-turvy when I checked my email box this morning and noticed that the unthinkable had happened, and iControlPad had finally been released. Is this even real life?

The iCade by ThinkGeek is an iPad accessory that turns your device into the ultimate retro games machine. It looks just like a tabletop arcade cabinet straight out of the 80s, and boasts a joystick with an 8-button control pad.

The iCade began as an April Fools’ Day spoof back in 2010 that became an incredibly popular story. ThinkGeek obviously saw how successful the device could be thanks to all the hype, and got to work on making the dream a reality. Now the iCade is available to pre-order.

They have worked closely with Atari to make the iCade fully compatible with Atari’s Greatest Hits – the recently released iOS app that features a library of classic arcade titles such as Asteroids, Missile Command and Pong. The control API will also be released soon, and will allow other developers to create games that are compatible with the iCade accessory.

You can pre-order the iCade from ThinkGeek now for $99.99, with shipping due to start on May 20th. Unfortunately it’s only available to residents of the U.S.

[via AppAdvice]