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Video Games Hit The Big Screen
Anonymous Coward writes "A movie theatre owner in Logan, Utah is hoping to start a new trend by bringing video games (Halo in this case) to the big screen. The local newspaper in Logan, The Herald Journal has a nice write-up about the success they had. Does anyone else think this could catch on to be successful, especially in college towns?"
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/19/ 164257&tid=127&tid=211
DUPLICATE!
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/19/ 164257&tid=127&tid=211
This has already been posted.
Cineplex Odeon did this back in the early 90's. Allowing people to rent out a theater to play nintendo. It tanked, big time
In reference to the previous article and to ward off any potential slashdotting, here's a link using the new Coral P2P cache. Enjoy!
Village Cinemas in Melbourne are already doing this...See here
What prizes can I win?
First Prize: Family trip (2 adults and 2 kids) to the USA to visit Nintendo America. Second Prize: A GameCube Interactive Unit and a year's supply of GameCube games. Third Prize: A private Gold Class screening for 25 people at Village Cinemas Crown.
What dates can I play?
Get in by 8.30am each Sunday to register and prepare yourself for the big screen action!
1 August: Registration and Round 1 - 1080: Avalanche
15 August: Round 2 - Mario Kart Double Dash!!
29 August: Round 3 - Super Smash Bros. Melee
12 September: Round 4 - F-Zero GX
26 September: Round 5 - Super Smash Bros. Melee
10 October: Round 6 - Mario Kart Double Dash!!
24 October: Superfinal The top 300 players will compete in the Superfinal on Sunday 24 October where a winner will be crowned!
How much does it cost?
You can purchase a single session ticket for $12, which entitles you entry into one of the above challenges. A guest can also come and watch you play for just $5 a session.
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence you ever tried.
This was already done when I was in college a few years back at Harvey Mudd. Every year one dorm builds a movie screen in their courtyard for the super bowl and leaves it up for a week after for video games and movies. In between, people regularly use the screens in our large lecture hall for after hours gaming. It looks like a blast, but at Mudd at least there's no market for selling this service.
I have a friend who is a manager at a one of the Famous Players theaters here in town. Occasionally late at night there will be an "xbox night". Everyone brings in a controller and their xbox (well 4 people do). Add a few meters of Cat5 and a $19 SMC 4 port router and you've got a recipe for good times. Last weekend we had 16 player games of Halo running for hours. Crimson Skies wouldn't go more than 4 player (2 theaters * 2 players) which was a shame. The new zelda really comes into it's own on a huge screen though.
Pretty much every theater these days has a digital projector for displaying those powerpoint-esque advertisements so it's just like plugging in at home: at least some good came out of those. It's worth buying the controller extension cables so you can sit 2 or 3 rows up rather than right against the back wall. Walkie-talkies cover the inter-theater communication because cellphones can be hit-and-miss.
They sell beer at the concession now and there is a Pizza Hut right there for the food so I can see how it could make a good night out for the guys. All that said, I'm not sure this is something I'd be willing to pay for. 4 players * 4 theater is great because there is no down time. If I had to sit out every 4th round I think I'd rather just play at home on my puny 130cm TV and xbox live. Splitting $60 4 ways also seams a little pricey (though not much more than a regular movie). Not being able to eat and drink while playing would be a major disappointment too.
"Revolutionary"? I don't think it will be any more revolutionary than when they were showing saturday morning cartoons on them a few years ago. A good novelty, but ultimately to expensive, inconvenient (can't just go-and-play) to compete with the home gathering.
They've been doing this around here for a few years now. A local theatre manager who happened to like video games would allow co-workers to invite a couple of friends and play video games on the big screen once in a while on either Friday or Saturday nights. I don't remember what it started with, but they had been addicted to Halo for a while last I heard. I don't play Halo, so I've never bothered to check it out. :-P
I tried this with a few friends of mine once... we knew a T/A in the CS department who had keys to the AV equipment (enough abbreviations FY?). We went to the largest lecture hall and played 20 foot Mario Kart 64 with the RGB projector.
It was fun... but damn, was it ever fuzzy. I don't think the N64 was meant to be blown up so large! Even on big screen TVs it gets a bit foggy-looking. Fish-doggy (Yoshi) was little more than a 6 foot blob.
Next time we'll have to try some PC gaming I think, to see if the higher res images fare better.
Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
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http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_location/
Interactive even
http://vadim.www.media.mit.edu/games/gbt.ht
See also
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=89704&c
Were that I say, pancakes?
From what my friends in film school have told me, the cinema owners pretty much break even on admission price versus distributor royalties. Where they make their money is from selling you overpriced popcorn and sodas. Ever wonder why not a single theater tries to compete on the price of concessions?
Mmmm.. Donuts
The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA. hosts the annual MaxGames Video Game Tournament. The finals are played in the IMAX dome: 40'x60' image and a 13,000 watt, 44-speaker sound system.
http://www.thetech.org/events/maxgames/2004/
When we play (see my post above) we use the theater sound system. The projector to run the advertising accepts standard RCA type connections and is patched into the sound system for the theater - there's no real rummaging around to find empty jacks. I would assume this is to allow a PC to be used to run a slideshow or multimedia presentation when it's rented out for company meetings and such. The advertising is driven by a standard Wintel PC: keep in mind that we're interested in the advertising project (800x600 lcd project) not the projector that shows your the movies. This system is independent of the main projection system but is still tied into the theaters audio system.
It's not 7.1 THX surround, but it's still loud enough to rumble the ice in your cup.
The Atari Home Computer version was projected on the roof of an observatory (planetarium?) in the very early 80's.
(most of these details could be wrong from it being so long ago, but I saw a photo of it.)
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
The Tech in San Jose, CA has a yearly video game tournament where winners of selected games on the big 3 consoles play head to head on their IMAX dome.. first year I saw it, Halo.. with digital surround and picture on the dome.. and leather seating too. Mmmmmmmm.
http://www.thetech.org/maxgames/
Pretty cool event.