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Chuck E. Cheese 2.0
theodp writes "Newsweek reports the inventor of Pong and founder of Chuck E. Cheese is getting back into the restaurant game. Adults welcome. At age 62, perpetual kid Nolan Bushnell wants to get gamers out of the house. This week, he will announce a new venture, the uWink Media Bistro restaurantchain. With screens at every table and bar stool, each piping videogames, media content and interactive menus, Bushnell's convinced a young-adult crowd will use the shared-gaming experience as a chance to compete, relax and mingle."
So I can go to a place to pay to play videogames at a table in a restaurant where everyone else is sitting in their own group or by themselves *also* staring at the table? Dude, I'll stay home and login somewhere and play a game, thanks.
People are highly overrated. Especially random strangers in a place that serves food.
Besides, most of what Chuck E. Cheese offered was something other than videogames. Actual physical things you could interact with.
Food+games=sticky consoles.
Thanks but no thanks. I have enough trouble making my family wash their hands after eating before hopping on the conole/computer. I don't want to have to contend with something a hundred strangers used while eating.
Toss it on the pile with the email, PDAs, text messengers, 2-way pagers, cell phones, and other gadgetry.
Probably not the most popular opinion to have on /., but I find the quality of communication, especially in-person communication, sadly lacking these days.
No one of consequence
its called Dave and Busters?
seriously: good food. good beer. tons of games? a place where you can walk around with a red stripe in hand. and play like LA machineguns and all the other assorted Chuck E Cheese games like the mole thing etc?
how is this any different from DaB? Diff age group maybe... DaB is over 21 after like 9pm - and its kind of expensive. But still, this is the best implementation of a "gaming restaurant" even if its more arcade than chuck e cheese type of games.
Plus, the place is kinda classy, like id take buisiness clients there and girls on dates. (provided of course.. i had clients to entertain or girls to take on dates, or vice versa)
i just dont see how this could oneup dave and busters. which stole my heart the first time i went. -nrs
It's disappointing to see anti-geek trolls proliferating here on Slashdot. Worse, to see suck sentiments getting modded up.
If you have to put on a facade to impress your date, then maybe you ought not take the girl to Chuck E. Cheese. If covering up who you are is more important than being who you are, it's probably a good idea to take her to a fancy restaurant where you two can pretend to enjoy yourselves.
As for me, if a girl can't handle that I live at my parent's home and enjoy eating pizza while playing the PS2, then that's her loss. I am not going to lower my standards to become embroiled in a fake relationship where we don't really know each other because we put on a fake smile and try to pretend to be more debonnaire than we really are.
I want a girl who is going to enjoy getting her fingers with Cheetos dust with me. My standards are high, and I'm not willing to compromise my sense of self just to impress someone else.
I have read pretty much everyones response and no one seems to like this.As far as I can tell,everyone either thinks this will be too much like "CEC" (witch I thought was fun as #@$% as a kid!),that it'll be inferior,or that it wont bring people together the way he plans. But I wonder how many actually read what he plans? From everything I heard in the article,he seems to want this to be for an older crowd (so dont worry about it being to much like "CEC"),he seems to be focusing on bringing people together (so no isolationism,and might i add...he did a good job bringing people [at least kids] together with "CEC" ),and I cant imagine it's going to be like bars around the world with JUST those boring touch screen game systems (so maybe...just MAYBEEE he'll actually have some modern systems!). As for the sanitary issue,THAT one I can understand,and can only hope he has either thought about that allready,or will before he opens this new restaurant. I would allso like to point out the fact that "CEC",the place most of you seem so ^#$%bent on hating,is a: still up and running,and B:has spawned other companies to creat there own "CEC"-like business'. So I for one,can not WAIT to see what happens,and I will be hoping and praying that this idea EXPLODES into the mainstream! One last note here. I apologise if this post sounds inflamitory. That was not my intention at the start.
"Did they look like psychos to you,do psychos EXPLODE when sunlite hits them!?"-"Seth Gecko" (George Clooney)
I totally agree. In the US, arcades died because most places were full of the same types of games you can play at home for free. Those and the ticket type games like skeetball. And most people don't enjoy those at all. The only reason people will leave home to pay for games is if it gets you something you can't get at home. Competition or a chance to show off your skills are two reasons that you just don't see much of anymore. That's why DDR type games remain popular. Want to make a good arcade? Put in lots of fighting games, DDR, and big moving machines. Networked driving games where each car moves would be another good idea. The point is to offer something you can't get at home and to bring people together. Next step is to maintain all those games!!! I long for the days of going to the local arcade and wupping some ass in street fighter. And if such a place still existed I'd be there in a minute.
I love the flexibility of this thing. The fact that the system is running linux and centralizes all the operations of the restaurant says they'll be able to change up the content as easily as a new download. Dave and Buster's, Chuck E. Cheese, etc all have big expensive games that get old and go out of date. The platform Bushnell is rolling out looks like it will have the flexibility to experiment with new games and tools at a very low cost. psyched to see it!