Game Room to deliver true mallrat experience?

OK, so there’s plenty of cool tech news that’s come out of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, but this one caught my eye for the sheer oddity.  In it’s keynote presentation, Microsoft finally revealed it’s previously spoiled avatar arcade hub entitled “Game Room”.

PlayStation Home people will already get half the idea.  Your account is given a space to customise to your heart’s content (and wallet’s expense), except Game Room will allow Xbox avatars to install working arcade games into the environment to play against your friends.  So now you can finally relive the heady classics like Outlaw, Astrosmash and … uhh Space Hawk, and it will only cost you a nominal fee to play something you could find online for free!  Or even better you can demonstrate your intellectual inferiority to lobotamy patients true love of retro gaming by pumping in 40 Microsoft Funbux for a single play.  Z0MG, I never realised how nostalgic I was for the lack of value we had in the olden days!

So the complete lack of a demographic, desire and sensible pricing aside, here’s the oddity.  One of the real life arcades I used to go to when I was a kid was Playtime arcade in Northland (sometimes pronounced Norf-lans) Shopping Centre.  And when I was looking over the announcement trailer, something seemed creepily familiar:

That’s Game Room on the left and Playtime on the right, for anyone who’s having difficulty telling them apart.

So while I’m fine with Microsoft obviously basing their avatar arcade on a real life arcade, I’m now curious to find out if they’ll also bother to include all the other pertinent aspects of a visit to Playtime? Namely machines that don’t work, staff that don’t care and wandering gangs of high-school drop outs saying “The fuck you looking at, c**t?” while huffing paint out of a plastic bag.  Maybe Microsoft, just to protect against any unexpected residual self-image, should take Northland’s approach and make sure classical music is playing inside Game Room at all times to keep the undesirables out.

Game Room is set to be released sometime in the first half of the year.  I can tell you’re all just holding your breath in anticipation.