Visiting Tokyo later this month

[Bart]

I’ve quit my job of 5 years and will be starting a new one soon. I’ll be in Switzerland from 6/8-6/15 and thereafter in Tokyo until the 24th. I haven’t really been since 2008! Anything I absolutely must check out, especially on the classic gaming front? I’m doing a HoloLens talk on the 23rd but otherwise have no plans.

[Ian]

What were you doing before ? I wasn't sure if you were actually working full time with the hololens. Never been to Japan, but would love to go one day.

[Stoneman]

Nice, you visit Switzerland, the country where I live. Good Luck with finding a good job.

[Bart]

Nice, you visit Switzerland, the country where I live. Good Luck with finding a good job.

Thanks! I’ll be in Geneva for the first couple of days and the last two nights. In between I’ll see how the weather is and decide what to do. I’m very excited. I love mountains and missed having access to them all these years in New York.

[barrazita2]

Good to hear that your getting a new job and can continue with your AR side project!!
I'd like to play some Initial D arcade in Akihabara if a have the chance to travel to Japan.

[Ian]

Bart if you have some time off maybe you could poke the model3 ?
maybe see when the irqs are fired or something ..

[Nickie]

Anything I absolutely must check out, especially on the classic gaming front?

well i'll say don't lose too much time in akihabara as you'll figure out that akiba has changed a lot since 2008, i mean the huge yodobashi was already there if i remember right but the centermost part kept going downhill from there and you gotta much further away from the main street and station to find interesting things like cheap retro games etc ... the center is maid-cafe paradise now

[Bart]

I had to Google "Maid Cafe". Lol. Not something I'd be into. I've been here for a couple days now and haven't yet been to Akihabara. I guess I'll do some googling for retro game shops.

[Joaquim Gonçalves]

I had to Google "Maid Cafe". Lol. Not something I'd be into. I've been here for a couple days now and haven't yet been to Akihabara. I guess I'll do some googling for retro game shops.

Maybe you will find Luke Morse in Japan.
I love so much is videos.

https://www.youtube.com/user/lukemorse1

[Bart]

So I'm back stateside now, about to start my new life in California next week. Japan was great. I met with some folks from Bandai-Namco and then later went to see VR Zone Shinjuku, a VR arcade of sorts by the same company. It'll be interesting to see whether arcades can make a come back in this form. I tried Mario Kart VR and it was very compelling. The main problem was that the games were all extremely short (about 3 minutes of play time) and not particularly expansive or deep.

I'm a big believer in the potential of location-based VR after having tried The Void's Ghostbusters experience in New York. I haven't been impressed with home VR yet -- I'm an AR snob. Location-based VR gaming is getting quite a bit of investment here in the US; for example, AMC, our largest movie theater chain, believes that they can draw dwindling audiences back to movie theaters with VR experiences.

Economics remain a big problem. VR is highly immersive and the bar is high for creating compelling 3D worlds. This takes $$$. An experience that people are willing to drive to a movie theater and stand in line for had better be AAA quality. But AAA-quality titles take tens of millions of $ to develop. This makes sense because the costs can be recouped through mass distribution. With location-based VR, that's not the case. The number of people able to play the game at any given time will be constrained. I wonder how this problem will be solved or if VR will remain something that's technically feasible, impressive when done right, but frustratingly rare in the wild.