There are some things that are more fun in theory than practice. Filling a hot tub with chili, for example. Or shoving a jellyfish in your pants. You know what I’m getting at. I think we can also put integrating video games into cars into this category, for reasons I’ll get to. I mention this because today Volkswagen issued a press release announcing that it’s the “first volume automotive brand in the U.S. to offer AirConsole in-vehicle gaming,” which I suppose is true, but that doesn’t mean VW is the first volume brand to let people play games on their car’s screens. Tesla has been doing this for years, and Chrysler’s U-Connect system has offered in-car games for over a decade.
VW’s partner in this is AirConsole, who have a clever system that uses passengers’ (ideally not drivers’) phones as the system’s controllers, activated via a QR code, which allows for multiple people in the car to play together on the car’s center-stack screen. While AirConsole seems to have a library of about 150 games, VW’s system will launch with 20, which includes some actually licensed games like Tetris and Pac-Man Championship Edition, which I’ve played in arcades and is a fun variant of Pac-Man, though this version used seems to be further VW-branded, with VW logos standing in for power pellets, and VW’s ambient lighting will be used to enhance the experience. Oh, and the bonus fruit is replaced by little check engine light icons!
I kid, I kid! There are no check engine lights here! We’re all having fun!
All of this works on 2027 Atlas, Atlas Cross Sport, Tiguan, Golf GTI, Golf R, and ID. Buzz models, but it’s not free. Well, it’s free for three months, then it’s $149/year – though that includes many more features in the In-Vehicle Premium package, of course. As VW says in their press release:
Volkswagen’s In-Vehicle Premium connected services offering enabled by myVW+, which includes features such as Wi-Fi hotspot capability, Premium Navigation, Premium Speech, and additional connected experiences depending on vehicle model. MY27 Atlas, Atlas Cross Sport, Tiguan, and Golf models include three months of In-Vehicle Premium at no additional cost from the date of vehicle purchase, while ID. Buzz includes one year. To access AirConsole, customers must enroll an eligible vehicle in the myVW app and accept applicable terms and conditions. Following the complimentary period, an active In-Vehicle Premium subscription, available on MY27 vehicles for $149 per year, is required to continue accessing AirConsole and other eligible connected features.
So, all of this is fun, sure. Text on the AirConsole page that says “The AirConsole gaming platform will provide enjoyable entertainment to people on the road, for example, when charging or during a break.” suggests that the games can’t be played while the car is driving, which limits its use as a road-trip diversion. And while everyone being able to play together is nice, rear seat passengers won’t exactly have a great view of that center screen.
Early attempts to integrate video games into cars seemed to focus on their use in the rear seat, to keep bored kids from murdering one another on long trips. Ford’s Continental Concept 100 concept car from 1982 is an example of this approach, which had an integrated Mattel Intellivision in the rear seat area:
That’s cool in a retro way, no question, but all of these systems seem to pretend that modern people – kids or former kids – have so very many ways to play video games wherever and whenever they want. If you have a portable system like a Nintendo Switch or, hell, your phone, you already have a way to play games in your car, regardless of whether or not its driving. And the selection of games is far larger and of far higher quality than any in-car-based system could hope to be.
So, sure, I’m not going to fault any carmaker for figuring out ways to have fun in a car, but at $149/year it feels like that money would be better spent on a couple of games for whatever your preferred portable console is. The only advantage I can really see from this system is that everyone in the car can play together, and while that’s great, that can also be done with portable consoles like the Switch. Which you can then take inside to your hotel or grandma’s house or the rehab facility or whatever, because it doesn’t, you know, need a whole car to work.
I guess I’m not really sure what the point of all this is. Just have a promotion to include a Switch or something with the purchase of a new VW, maybe? I mean, they did it with bicycles once, after all.
Which is fine. Some of the premium features require a cell connection and such. But this? Surely they’re not round-tripping your “controller” through the cloud (and if they are, this is likely an awful experience). If they’re bundling a purely local piece of functionality into a subscription package then that’s exactly the kind of thing we’ve all been concerned about.
Get the GolfR and you can play Forza for real. Also, if your phone is a mobile WiFi hot spot why does your car need it?
My dad had conversion vans when I was a kid. We used to bring the Nintendo and hook it up to the TV in back on long trips, it ruled!
We also had a 1995 Chevy conversion van growing up… The TV was removed from the vehicle after my friend relieved himself of his Mac and Cheese in the backseat due to motion sickness… It never smelled the same after that…
My kid did something similar in the back seat of a rental Impala. We went through an entire bottle of Fabreze before returning it to the counter. But I imagine it still didn’t smell great. My wife and mother were with me on that trip, so it wasn’t like I was exploring the limits of adhesion.
Why is this a thing? Who is just chilling out in their stationary cars unless you’re doing the following:
I feel a little bad for the software devs who got the job of integrating this. Yes, I’m getting paid money for my time. Also yes, this is absolutely pointless and will not make a single sale beyond VW QA team and the manager who hired me to do it.
I’m cranky this morning so gonna ask why do we need “fun” in the context of anyduckin thing these days? I saw the other day Apple pie flavored wine and my daughter thought it was “fun”. She’s 15 and has no idea what wine even is.
Playing video games on your car display is not “fun”. Please don’t give them even a shred of legitimacy.
yea man, the USA video game market is about $68 billion dollars because the products that they sell are just not fun
You are correct and know your addressable market but not at all what I was saying.
Why should things not be fun?
Do we really need to keep our minds this busy and distracted all the time? What the hell is wrong with just talking to the other people in the car for the few minutes you’re all together during the commute? And on road trips these services already exist through a number of other sources, most of them free except for the data harvesting the makers do. Maybe I’m just old and grumpy, but I’m fed up with TV’s in restaurants and phones EVERYWHERE. Look up people, and be present where you are.
I find it easier just to text my fellow passengers.
What the hell is wrong with just talking to the other people in the car for the few minutes you’re all together during the commute?
Did you learn nothing from Thanksgiving dinner?
Fair. Maybe it’s not all bad.
“VW’s partner in this is AirConsole” Suggested edit: substitute “accomplice” for “partner”.
Do they include free advertising?
I love watching free advertising. For example my Hulu subscription now has advertising I pay for, so that is not as fun.
Yeah, Amazon and Netflix earned cancellations for their added advertising and upgrade to removed the ads scheme. I’m paying extra to not get the ads already. Do no harm, my fundament.
And now US taxpayers are paying for Trumpian “PSAs.” Really? Love me as the underlying music? How long before JMSN, who recorded the song, gets an injunction?
From People magazine, of all sources: “JMSN said there were two ways the situation could have unfolded. “1. The President or his team reach out and ask to license the song, I respond ‘no’ and you never know about it.” Or, he wrote, “2. The President illegally uses the song without asking but still the public goes full [expletive] and immediately assumes that a license was granted.”
“Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland also slammed the message.
“This may be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes,” Raskin, 63, wrote, noting the Hatch Act, a 1939 federal law that limits the political campaigning of the executive branch of the government.
Sorry to go political, but this blatant misuse of tax dollars annoys the hell out of me.
I recently decided to pay Hulu an extra $10/month to skip as many ads as I can. It hasn’t been 100% effective, but my 90 seconds of time, several times per hour NOT watching ads, is worth it.
If only the controllers themselves could play games. Then you’d be able to play for free, anywhere, with a library of tens of thousands of games from multiple app stores.
Seriously, all this secondary passenger screen and gaming/movies on the infotainment screen business would be great in an alternate timeline where we’re all still using StarTAC’s, but in this timeline it’s just bloat and a cashgrab. Another icon on the vehicles home screen that will be sitting there long after AirConsole folds.
What’s next? Full size DDR in the back of a Ford Transit?
I think that would be much more amusing in the back of a subcompact.
Truck Simulator in a Microlino.
East Germany?
Dance Dance Revolution. Smaller and less communist, but still pretty hefty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD7q-_nJNPQ
…ew, (auto)mobile gaming.
Depends on the value of everything else. If other services like accessing traffic data or stuff are also included, that could well be worth it. I’d shell out if the other services are worth it since $150 a year is a heck of a lot cheaper than a ticket for using a handheld device while driving. Plus the risk of a police interaction after a decade plus of police getting trained that everyone is packing heat and hopped up on meth so shoot first and ask questions later.
I once connected a play station to the rear screen of our MDX. It was free to use and still, no one cared.
Argh! Sheer luxury! When I was a kid we had really challenging games to play in the back of that Chevy station wagon; games like Tip-It, KerPlunk and Jenga were especially tough. Playing Twister on a bumpy backroad was a gas! Then came those stupid seatbelt laws and ruined everything.
The $149 are not for AirConsole alone. From your text, I would assume that AirConsole is more of an extra goodie on top of what those $149 get you (in-car WiFi internet access, premium nav, premium speech …).
Back before OnStar was permanently switched off, it was €10 a month, which is the same kind of money, for way less functionality.
an active In-Vehicle Premium subscription, available on MY27 vehicles for $149 per year, is required to continue accessing AirConsole and other eligible connected features.
I couldn’t care less about the AirConsole, which sounds like a useless gimmick, but what else is subscription-only? Heated seats? ABS? I hate, loathe and despise that business model.
Don’t most infotainment screens run on android? Can’t you just sideload some games onto that for free?
$150/year? Damn, that’s a hard pass.
My Ford has some basic touchscreen games. They aren’t particularly fun, but they are particularly free, so there’s that.
When I’m charging the car the last thing I want to do is sit in it. I want to take a bathroom break, stretch my legs and get some fresh air.
I’d still think if there wasn’t so much resistance to the very idea of plugging in for more than 5 minutes, electrification could bring a rebirth of sit-down roadside dining.
Part of it has to be the cost-of-living crisis making ‘casual leisure’ seem like a waste of time. Even Irv Gordon who managed to put 3 million miles on that P1800 said he ‘liked to stop every couple of hours, you know, have a cup of coffee, see what’s going on in town.’ Nowadays it seems like if you were to suggest that to the people who think range is everything they would act like someone had pissed in their coffee.
That would be so much better than all the crappy fast food.
Pardon my language, but what the schijt?
$150 subscription to play some scheiße game in your car, using a phone which has its own games?
That’s just merde by any other word.
Aren’t you already playing games just by buying a Volkswagen?
I chortled. Got ’em.
150$/year??? Christ.
I see absolutely no value to this, and it reminds me of when a friend of mine’s douchebag older brother spent all his money in high school installing a PS2 into his Neon. It was stupid and borderline useless then, and even with the improvements, seems pretty useless now. Especially when the Switch exists.
Haha. I remember that kind of custom job. The best my friends ever had was a PS2 Slim, a power inverter and a weird, off-brand Android-based navigation thing that also had a video input.
I am planning to make chili tomorrow. Where can I get a hot tub on short notice?
In Theory, making a peanut butter and jellyfish sandwich should be good, but…