Even though some of us didn’t grow up with Pong — the classic arcade game released by Atari in 1972 — we’ve all heard of it because it’s timeless. And because of its infinite appeal, like a few lucky Game of Thrones characters, it can be resurrected in new forms. In this case, as a coffee-table game. An insanely cool coffee-table game that replicates the original video game as a real physical game inside of a retro and gorgeously crafted cabinet.
Begin preparations for shutting up and having money taken.
Gizmodo recently reported on the “real physical version and homage” to Pong, which was built by a team in Uruguay that included Daniel Perdomo. It took Perdomo and his friends two years to complete the project, and according to Gizmag, none of them had any background in electronics, production design, or manufacturing.
You wouldn’t guess that based on the above video, however, which gives a time-lapse look at the build process, as well as some regular gameplay with the finished product (which begins around 3:45). Needless to say, it looks like an incredible effort was put into this build — the table duplicates the classic Pong knobs, score counter, and even has a square “ball” — and the finished product passes the I-want-to-play-it–right-now-give-it-to-me! test with flying pixels.
Even though Perdomo and crew (a.k.a. the Pong Project) have built what looks to be a flawless prototype, they still need help in order to produce the Pong coffee table game for consumers. Specifically, it seems that they need a hardware incubator. If you can help with that, contact Perdomo via Facebook. If you can’t help with that, join the crowd of people ogling the Pong coffee table with dreams of one day playing a ping pong video game in real life. (How else could we do that?!)
What do you think about the Pong Project’s Pong coffee table? Are you ready to sit, sip, and score, or would you prefer another classic arcade game remix like — let’s go with something totally random here — an $80 million Tetris movie? Let us know in the comments below!
Images: Daniel Perdomo
