We’re running on brief stories this week but that’s ok. There’s no need to write a whole chapter on each piece of news that comes along. 😛
Raw Thrills continues to promote the upcoming release of Halo Fireteam Raven, now with a sales flyer. We haven’t seen too many flyers in recent memory – they might show up at trade shows but so often now they do not. That, or they are nothing to write home about. This new one for Halo Fireteam Raven certainly has enough to gawk at, following the pattern of a proper arcade flyer.
The bullet point details that it discusses are things we heard about previously – the two 4k screens, 4-players with force feedback guns, 5.1 surround sound (per cabinet seat) and the Xbox Live Gamertag connectivity. For those unsure how that is supposed to work, it will use QR code scanning with a smartphone like many of Raw Thrills other games have done to post scores. Whether or not this will involve some other app to link to the Gamertags is unknown at this time. Another piece of interest from this flyer are the dimensions; instead of it being 11’x11’x11′ as said in the initial video, it’s slightly smaller at 9.9′ tall and deep while it is 11.4 feet wide. Still a huge piece; it’s an even bigger monster to ship. Here’s the flyer:
Raw Thrills is taking pre-orders for this now; if you operate a location, are you considering this?
My issue with this and others like it is just the shear size of the thing! I have been telling my game sales rep and some manufacturer reps for years that this trend towards bigger and bigger games just does not work for everyone. Not every arcade or FEC out there has Dave and Busters or Round 1 space to put these behemoths. I can’t even really consider this for my location. I just don’t have the room for something like this. I barely managed to squeeze a Jurassic Park in. For that monster I would have to take out all 6 of my drivers (2 Superbikes 2, 2 Snowcross, and 2 Dirty Drivins) and it probably still wouldn’t fit that space due to the structural support columns further out from the wall.
I agree, an alternative case is a very small development compared to the software part. Manufacturers should generally offer a small case. The Halo machine is a special case: MS is now entering the arcades. And they want a big bang to let people know.
I’ve heard the two player is being released at IAAPA this year. IT should have a similar footprint to Jurassic, perhaps a little larger.
My bigger issue is the timing of the release. Why give us a large game that should be a decent earner right after our busiest season?
I agree with this 100 percent. I don’t understand why it’s so impossible to at least release a standard cabinet alongside the deluxe, FEC-friendly experience.
I’m not an operator, but my thoughts would go like this: Do a couple of min. 3 friends come in quite often? If yes, the machine is probably worth the space.
Even so, it’s still kind of ridiculous. It may be worth the space in FECs–absolutely!–but what about in other locations where every square foot counts? I just don’t know. I think the fact that we’ve even been discussing game size so much lately means it is a real problem. I’m glad there will be a two-player version (from what George commented above). Still, it would nice to see something much, MUCH smaller. Games are too dang big.
When we could fit Taiko and Pump into that space, which are constant money generators and have people coming back because they are skill based games where you can always improve and battle other players in tournaments etc.. I’d be hard pressed to even consider this…
This sounds very cool but I hope they don’t do what they’ve done to the walking dead which seems very likely to be honest. I wish they wouldn’t make the game so impossible that you have to pay again to continue and I always die at the same bit and especially the more you progress the more damage you take even if you’ve no damage done at all.
The other thing is I can’t see me coming across this game easily unless they release a smaller version as its a bit too big.