Real board game boards with virtual pieces.

[final kaoss]

Hello, I've been pondering the idea of having real board game boards with virtualized playing pieces.


I think this would be a great new feature to start adding to family board games, this way there would never be a lost piece ever again. Imagine a game board with a cpu inside that illuminates the board and displays the pieces when turned on, all that would be needed is a power cord or batteries.


For example, imagine playing a game of chess, it would be just as easy as starting a game online; all the pieces are instantly setup and ready to go!

Thoughts?

[Pyriel]

Probably not too practical yet. To be anything other than garbage, you'd need a fairly good LCD or OLED touch screen and the hardware to drive it. If you want the screen to be the same physical size as typical boards, that would be a big cost. You wouldn't necessarily need much of a general purpose processor, but it'd still cost a fair bit per unit. The cost might go up some if you want to program game rules and so forth, as opposed to letting people cheat freely if they can get away with it while the screen just displays pieces, the board, and probably provides a randomizer for games that need dice rolls. Then you'd need some sort of storage for the graphics, and any expansions you might want to provide. Probably a USB hookup would be the cheapest way to get data to it, for new games, etc., and that's another bit of hardware you have to throw in. In total, you'd probably be looking at around a $100 retail price tag for something minimal that might attract consumers, and probably much more, just based on technological requirements.

If you want to offer games that aren't just a chess or checkers-like grid, the technology needs to support it. Something as simple as Candyland would need a surprising amount of technology to be presented well on a virtual board-game unit. Then factor in the licensing you'd undoubtedly need for anything not in the public domain. I just don't see people springing for it when they can get close-out board games for $5 and avoid the hassle. If you think people really have a yen to play virtual chess at the kitchen table, you'd probably have better luck selling them a big-ass magnifying glass that can still act as a touch screen for their iPad, Kindle, what have you. I don't know if such a thing exists, though. You might have to invent it.

[rimsky82]

This idea reminded me of the Microsoft Surface stuff. Not the convertible laptop-tablets, but the tables that have been out for a while. Huge price tag to play some board games, though.

I guess they renamed it PixelSense in light of the recent flood of laptops.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/pixelsense/default.aspx

[final kaoss]

That's probably the way it'll be played on one of those samsung giga-tablet things. Cost $8400 for one of those suckers atm. Maybe in several years they'll be $200-$300.

Just don't get a Domino app on one of those things. People like to slam them down as hard as they can on tables anyways lol.