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Blog Tesla Invites Consumers to Experience the Tesla Arcade

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After Tesla recently announced plans to offer more gaming options for the entertainment systems available in its cars, the automaker said Tuesday it is inviting consumers to showrooms to “experience the new Tesla Arcade.”

The company also tweeted a teaser video for a new racing game, Beach Buggy Racing 2, that is controlled with the vehicle’s steering wheel when the car is parked.






Chief Executive Elon Musk recently said on Twitter that the company is working on porting the Unity and Unreal video game engines, which are among the most popular development platforms for games.

Musk first revealed Tesla’s efforts to bring games to its cars last August when he announced the “TeslaAtari,” which includes classic titles like Centipede, Asteroids, Missile Command, Super Breakout and 2048.

Check out Tesla’s invitation to “Experience the Arcade” below.

Experience the Tesla ArcadeGlobal Tesla ShowroomsJune 18 — June 30Bring your friends and family to a Tesla showroom to experience the new Tesla Arcade until June 30.Access the full library of games directly from the vehicle’s touchscreen to play gaming classics like Atari Missile Command and Asteroids – or experience our newest addition, Beach Buggy Racing 2, a kart racing game where you can careen, blast and launch your way through 22 tracks. Players can recruit new drivers (see if you can find our favorite) and use the steering wheel controls for the most immersive gaming experience.If you’re interested in stopping by, kindly RSVP and visit a store near you.Learn more about the latest performance features during your visit or schedule a test drive for the real thing.

 
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I remember attending a presentation by Amazon which had to be 10 years ago where they went into some of the silly projects that Amazon developers worked on. Projects they worked on to alleviate the stress of the mainline work. Amazon was way deep in the red year after year after year and the developers werent working on projects to make the business profitable. Amazon knew the business would be profitable.

They weren’t advertising them to customers and shareholders in a mass email, were they?
 
Ahh, now I get it! That's why my June delivery inventory Model X that was supposed to come with Free Unlimited Supercharging did not come with it - the guy that's supposed to add it to my config was busy developing games! Now we're trying to get it added and it's taking a long while - they're busy working on these stupid games!

This is why that delivery experience is s#itty compared to 3 years ago when I took delivery of my Model S.


SMH :rolleyes::mad:
 
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So the team working on games is working for free, or paid by Elon personally? If they are taking money from Tesla, how about taking that money and applying it to fixing real problems, like people's yellowing screens for example, or customer service? Service tech are being laid off while wait for an appointment is a month long and no option to speak to a live person for help, but gaming devs are essential?

I would think they have weighed that the games sell more cars than some of the issues you mentioned, or even solving the Chademo or CCS adapter problem. I get it, our own priorities are always higher than the manufacturers. Still frustrating.
 
Half the investors here complain about Tesla not spending money on advertising, as if a few million in ads would make any difference against billions spent by incumbent automobile companies.

You know, it can cost $50,000 to be a “sponsor” at a conference which lets you stick a few signs up that are promptly forgotten if anyone notices at all, or hundreds of thousands for a booth at a large show.

Tesla spends hundreds of thousands on a feature, which gets top exposure to a massive demographic, plasters their name all over the news for weeks, is positioned as a cool company, AND paves the way for future third party apps.

And people whine.

Sometimes it’s not only the shorts who fail to see the big picture.
 
It costs a lot to change software in automotive industry. Those 'buttons" you talk about could launch the car through your living room wall. Making sure the car knows whether you pressing the pedal to the metal for the game or real life is where exhaustive testing has to occur. When you play some racing game and accidentally bump the gear shifter, should your car launch?

Nobody is dissing retro games by the way - you can get them on phones, tablets, portable gaming consoles. If Tesla wanted to just enable the big screen for gaming, HDMI input would be a much better choice (plug in your N64 or Atari retro or Switch) - lots of those games come built into the controller they come on, so no extra hardware anyways, but no potentially destabilizing the car software and paying tons of money to develop it.
At E3 they said you don't actually use the accelerator pedal for this game, you accelerator with the wheel buttons. They're misleading in the marketing video. So the controls are not even comfortable for this game
 
While I understand the frustration, and that many will blame all Tesla's issues on what a couple programers are doing, there are also benefits.

Tesla will get $10 Million worth of free advertising from this. Something that everyone interested will be talking about.
They will use it to inexpensively draw thousands into their showrooms, sit them down in a Tesla and teach them about the remarkable capabilities of their cars (including their built in computer that runs the car with AI and provides driver aids and navigation.

It will also act as a differentiator between all the other EV's coming out. You know...the ones without any video games :)

Tesla is different from all the other auto companies. Something like when Apple did great ads to explain how they Think Different.

Tesla will use these games to show how their cars are "Computers on Wheels" How the cars can drive themselves. People coming into their showrooms will also be exposed to their Solar roofs and Power Walls.

Again. I understand that people would want to vent their frustrations over this, but there are benefits.

I remember my parents doing the same thing. They would compare everything to America landing on the Moon...If America can send a man to the moon, why do we have pot holes in our streets. If American can send a man to the moon, why can't our kids get a good education...etc.

All valid points, but it also puts a fun, human side to an auto manufacturer.

I still think Elon is brilliant!
 
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While I understand the frustration, and that many will blame all Tesla's issues on what a couple programers are doing, there are also benefits.

Tesla will get $10 Million worth of free advertising from this. Something that everyone interested will be talking about.
They will use it to inexpensively draw thousands into their showrooms, sit them down in a Tesla and teach them about the remarkable capabilities of their cars (including their built in computer that runs the car with AI and provides driver aids and navigation.

It will also act as a differentiator between all the other EV's coming out. You know...the ones without any video games :)

Tesla is different from all the other auto companies. Something like when Apple did great ads to explain how they Think Different.

Tesla will use these games to show how their cars are "Computers on Wheels" How the cars can drive themselves. People coming into their showrooms will also be exposed to their Solar roofs and Power Walls.

Again. I understand that people would want to vent their frustrations over this, but there are benefits.

I remember my parents doing the same thing. They would compare everything to America landing on the Moon...If America can send a man to the moon, why do we have pot holes in our streets. If American can send a man to the moon, why can't our kids get a good education...etc.

All valid points, but it also puts a fun, human side to an auto manufacturer.

I still think Elon is brilliant!
I don't disagree with this, but they should also be working on areas that real customers have been complaining about such as USB and the unsafe mess the made with V9.
 
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There is one thing missing from this analysis, marketing.

Sure there are tons of small improvements on the software that could be made. But using 1-2 developer resources to improve the games, particularly racing games, could be worth it. Getting .1 - 1% more market awareness because of this could be greater value than a 10% improvement in the software.
 
I understand your point; however, if you've ever met a computer programmer, you'd know that you do not want the average programmer working in customer support! ;)

(This is not a dis to computer programmers. I am one myself [my job is more complex than just that, but programming's part of it]. I would not do well in customer support, and neither, I think, would most of my colleagues.)

Yeah I totally agree. You dont want software engineers doing customer service. It will be worse than where they are at today. :) I cant see myself doing that role even for a short period without upsetting a customer.
 
But generally I do agree that Tesla should channel their resources in other things that have a better value for us. I am not sure how Tesla caught up in the world of games. After playing games on XBox, Playstation, PC with latest graphics cards, etc who would want to play the basic pixelized games on the Tesla console? That too I would rather not touch my display screen unless I absolutely have so it will last a long time. I dont get it.

Perhaps there is sufficient demand from customers asking for games??
 

Tesla owners should show up at the stores and instead of watching the Tesla Arcade demo, they should ask when will Tesla have full support for USB music devices like every other car company in the world. Fast, responsive support for browsing music by artist, genre, album, track title, and playlist. This is music 101, and every car company in the world other than Tesla pretty much has support for this. It continues to be inexplicable that Tesla refuses to provide this support. I frankly could care less about the games, the farts, and the other easter eggs: I want decent music support, period.

Yes! Thanks for this!

Although I've mostly given up saying this myself (owner since 2013)...I'm always amazed at how poor the music systems are (I've got a long list of bugs, poor UI and functional implementations) given the other advanced capabilities.

I'm in the music business, and very few cars are as lacking as Tesla's in this area.

I have friends who HAVEN'T bought the car simply because of the music system liabilities. I wonder how many people HAVE bought the car because of the fart feature?​
 
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Well, looks like I just got Tempest. Whole lot of fun if you ask me. Used some wired knock off PS4 controller with it. ( GF's son...."Hey has anyone seen my controller ?" (I am heard snickering in the background).

As for Elon wanting attention..and struggling with FSD Let's pretend you were him under the exact same amount of pressure...wouldn't you want to have a little fun with the company you built?

You DO REMEMBER that Elons first business venture he attempted was to start his own arcade at 16 and his Dad and uncle stopped him.?

Well, with some delay and perhaps more fanfare, he did it a few decades later but made it free, and this time his parents couldn't stop him.

Gotta love that.

@Golden Ears How did you get Tempest? Was there a new update? LOVE that game and can't wait to play it in the car.
 
I have friends who HAVEN'T bought the car simply because of the music system liabilities. I wonder how many people HAVE bought the car because of the fart feature?​

I got very close to not buying the Tesla because of the lack of CarPlay. Obviously I'm glad I did, but the lack of good musical support is still one of the biggest frustration of the car for me.
 
Tesla owners should show up at the stores and instead of watching the Tesla Arcade demo, they should ask when will Tesla have full support for USB music devices like every other car company in the world. Fast, responsive support for browsing music by artist, genre, album, track title, and playlist. This is music 101, and every car company in the world other than Tesla pretty much has support for this. It continues to be inexplicable that Tesla refuses to provide this support. I frankly could care less about the games, the farts, and the other easter eggs: I want decent music support, period.

@tinm, what kinds of issues are you having? I'm able to fully utilize the USB for my music library and I can browse easily through all the criteria you mentioned. I have a 2013 MS and I experimented a bit but finally got it working really well. If it's helpful, I posted on this page Which USB drive for music (post #5) about how I got it working. Hopefully this gets you closer.
 
If you were to ask 100 Tesla owners what kind of software updates Tesla should be working on, I'm pretty sure every single one of them would say "anything BUT games."
Well true for us. The wife got that email and said "Honey, maybe it is time we consider to sell the Tesla. It seems they aren't serious about focusing on the real reason for having the car !!!"