Vacation thoughts

Just got back from a great vacation with my family, we went down to Myrtle beach and it was awesome. There's almost too MUCH stuff to do!
Anyway I'm back refreshed and ready to go. The trip had me thinking of 2 revelations:

Myrtle Beach Revelation #1: Portable gaming systems are dead.


My man's pissed about it too.

There you go, I said it. I'm also not the only one. With the Nintendo botching the 3DS launch, reducing the price, and now re-launching an XL, the evidence is right in front of you. Playstation Vita, regardless of how sick it is, isn't doing as well as expected. Now, I unfortunately don't travel much, and my days of riding the bus to work are over (thank god, that sucked), so I never really see a need for portable gaming. My two and a half hour flight to Myrtle, and the 5 hour return flight home really opened my eyes to the big picture. It's not that the 3DS or Vita is a bad product, it's just not convenient enough. I got a Droid 3, and the thing does everything. We all know what smartphones can do. I'm listening to music while I play Tetris, stopping to check twitter, texts......Can a Vita do all that? No. Some of it, maybe all of it someday, but not now. Even my kids would rather play Fruit Ninja on my wife's IPAD then dust off their DS. I know that you really can't get a quality "console" experience on a tablet or phone, but I feel the group that really wants that experience is too small to make it a viable product anymore. When I was a kid, I was blessed with the big gray brick, Nintendo Gameboy. I was completely blown away and long road trips became a much quicker. Now there are so many options out there for us and our kids, and dedicated portable consoles are getting pushed aside. Playstation / Nintendo needs their next portable console to be pretty much a smartphone, or don't bother.

Myrtle Beach Revelation #2: Arcades are Dead. Long Live Arcades.

The Skywheel at night

In an earlier post I talked at length of the death of arcades, and my great memories of those days. I'm not going to rehash it here. But Myrtle had me thinking of new ways to invigorate them. We went to South Myrtle Beach at one point, and anybody who's been there knows it's a hot spot. Tons of sun, tons people, tons of stuff to do.
On our way to the Sky Wheel I spot a relic from the glory days. A glassed in storefront taking up almost the entire block. The large green and white sign above read, "Arcade". Simple and to the point.  Back in the day, this spot was probably the epicenter of the arcade scene on South Myrtle beach. Multiple Street Fighter cabinets, next to Dual Daytona 500 machines. Every SNK fighter represented. In short, heaven. Now its 90% ticket machines, crane games and skeeball. Outside of skeeball, it sucks. I give that place props for staying open, but it's a testament of where we were and where we are going.

Wonderworks: The Future of Arcades?

On the flip side we visited a place called Wonderworks, a cool place that teaches kids about science in a fun unique environment. They also had a cool arcade on the top floor, and with a little polish would be a great example of how a future arcade could be.
There was an air hockey game you played with only your hands. A pitching game where you pitch a real baseball against a real major league hitter. A snowboarding game that requires you to really ride a board. They had a slick racing game that takes your picture, and uses that as an avatar. Of course they had ticket machines, but some were real spectacles, like a giant two player Connect-4 game.

If things were a bit polished up, it would be epic. Let's take the all hands air hockey table. The puck was projected on a screen, but it was set at a very low speed. There should be higher difficulty levels, or a better physics engine so the puck changes speed realistically. Or the pitching game, which was awesome, but old. You select from a couple of real life mlb batters, and try to strike him out. You stand in an enclosed area and throw at a screen, which the batter is projected onto. It reads balls / strikes and how fast your pitch was. Sick right? Problem was the ball / strike reading needed to be calibrated, plus the roster needed to be updated. Bobby Abreau on the Phils? Yea right. Again, a little polish and that thing could even crazier. Improved hit detection and an updated roster would do that thing wonders. And let's go back to the Connect-4 ticket game. Listen, it's Connect-4, we all played it. But when you make it 15 feet tall, everyone wants to play it. The mundane needs to be a spectacle. That same philosophy needs to be transitioned to the rest of the games on the floor. Bigger Screens, bigger cabinets, crazier gimmicks. Ever hear of GyroZetter, the game where you can switch between a robot and race car on the fly, AND SO DOES THE CABINET.

My Childhood is crying.

That's right, the cabinet transforms depending on your form. That's what I'm talking about. Spectacle. Fighting games? Bigger and loader has been done before. So what's next? Online connectivity. Every machine is connected around the world, so you can play locally, or across the world. Display matches from around the world throughout the arcade. You see? Spectacle.

COME GET YOUR SHITTY PIZZA!

Dave and Buster's combined an arcade with a Bar / Restaurant with success. However, there's not enough of them. Plus, their food sucks, and it's mostly catered to adults. Chuck E Cheese is great for little ones, and no one else (and their food sucks). There's no middle ground. No family arcade for all ages. A place like Wonderworks showed what might be possible if someone had the balls and money to do it. Powerball is tonight. Maybe I'm that guy!