Monday News Round-up: Olympics, Wreck-It Ralph, Nolan Bushnell Interview

arcadehero August 6, 2012 0
Monday News Round-up: Olympics, Wreck-It Ralph, Nolan Bushnell Interview

For those who like their news delivered on a quick and dirty basis, here are some links accumulating in my inbox that are worth a mention at the very least. Includes Stinger Newsfeeds 1236 & 37

We don’t get much in the way of related Olympic stories but here is one from VentureBeat. Konami employees doing pretty well at the Olympics, with Kohei Uchimura winning gold in the Men’s Individual All-Around in gymnastics. It’s not like these guys are coding something like Metal Gear and training for the Olympics at night though – they are funded through a Konami-owned subsidiary focusing on sports.

Speaking of the Olympics brings us to something you might have seen during commercial breaks. Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report sent an open letter to the industry saying that they should get involved with Disney’s upcoming Wreck-It Ralph but few have stepped up to the plate of opportunity since I guess certain organizations that represent the amusement industry are just content to keep doing the same thing it is that they are doing. Oh well, we will bring it up here when pertinent and who knows what else might go on over the next 90 days before the movie comes out. Such as these commercials that have been playing during the Olympics.

Here’s a recent interview with Nolan Bushnell by Simon Parkin of Eurogamer. As Mr. Bushnell is well past the point of reminiscing about Atari days, he sounds bored and a little put off by such questions, kind of like Mark Hamill is put off by Star Wars and would like some recognition for all of the other stuff he’s been involved in or is currently doing. From Bushnell’s Twitter feed I’ve seen that he has been involved in education lately but from the interview it looks like he still has some ideas for the arcade space, I suppose we will have to wait and see if any of those would come to fruition (his idea about the multi-player space station game almost seems like an evolved concept of amusement theaters like Galaxian 3). The interview covers a few other things regarding arcades as well.

Here is a collection of purchasable digital prints that blends classic arcade concepts together, like Pac-Man and BurgerTime or Joust and Mario Bros. Via Etsy.

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