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Trainee Author | Liu Dandan
Edit | dawn
Xian'an, a Tesla owner who lives in Shenyang, has recently had a new pleasure.
Due to the impact of the epidemic and the closure at home can not leave the community, now Xian An will walk in the yard for two hours every day, and then get on the car and play a game for one hour with a Tesla machine. "It's good to go to the car and play games when you have nothing to do at home." Hyun An tells Deep Path.
Can cars still play games? That's right. For the current smart car, car game is not a new thing, even "Cyberpunk 2077" such aaa masterpiece, Tesla's car machine can be brought up.
Not only Tesla, in March this year, Xiaopeng Motors transplanted the mobile game "Tom Cat Parkour" to a number of models.
In the official micro of Ideal Car on April 6, Ideal also spoiled the game function of its second new car Ideal L9, which will realize a direct connection of Switch to the screen through the Type-C interface, turning the whole car into a mobile game space for the whole family.
However, in the eyes of many people, cars and games are not linked. After all, one is a means of transportation, and the other is a way of entertainment.
But now, with more and more car companies on the game, new problems have begun to appear, when the vehicle adds entertainment attributes, will it cause the driver to be distracted and there will be a safety hazard? Is playing games in the car the real need of consumers or is it a flashy new gimmick?
How do I move the game into the car?
The game is not unfamiliar to everyone, from the post-60s to the post-00s and even the post-10s, each generation has its own generation of game memories, happy landlords, happy fun, glory of the king, Hearthstone, Kirby of the Stars, Mario, League of Legends, etc., the game has long become a part of many people's lives.
According to everyone's consistent understanding, playing games mostly refers to playing with mobile phones or computers. Playing games is often also linked to mobile phones, game books, Nintendo Switch, Sony PS consoles and other game devices, choosing to be frugal and frugal. But now, with the development of smart cars, the mature market of games has ushered in a new carrier, and more and more car companies have begun to move games into the car.
As the planet's most innovative car industry bigwig, Musk has always maintained a high interest in the game of getting on the car. In 2018, Missile Command, Asteroids, and Lunar Lander were updated into Tesla's car. In 2021, "Cyberpunk 2077" was demonstrated by Musk with a car machine at the Model S Plaid conference, and it was a stunning four-seater.
Gac Aion AION S Plus also joined hands with Migu Express in 2021 to launch a "cross-dimensional dream esports cabin" game set priced at 199 yuan, which includes a physical gamepad, more than 1,000 game installation packages, and single-month game memberships.
Overall, there are not a few products that currently support the game on the car, but specific to each product, the way we realize the game function is not the same.
Tesla, Eian, Xiaopeng and other products of the game from the system download. Taking Xiaopeng as an example, Song Xu, a salesman of a certain experience center of Xiaopeng Automobile in Beijing, told Shentu that he opened the Xiaopeng application store on the big screen of the central control, clicked in to see all kinds of applications, and wanted to play what game directly click to download it, "This kind of small game is very smooth to play, and there is no difference with mobile phones." ”
Source / Courtesy of respondent
The ideal L9 is equipped with a 220V power supply in the car, with an HDMI-Type-C adapter cable, which connects the Switch and the central control screen, co-driver entertainment screen and rear cabin entertainment screen in the car through the Type-C interface. In addition to Switch, Ideal Car said that Ideal L9 also supports some mobile phones, Pads, and laptops that use Type-C interfaces to achieve first-line HD screen projection + charging on the car.
"There's nothing mysterious about playing games in the car, it's technically easy to solve." For the game function of the car machine, Zhao Ting, an electronic and electrical architecture engineer at ARCFOX, told Shentu that the current game function that wants to implement the game function on the car is mainly the two ways of downloading and screen projection used by these car companies.
Download refers to downloading games from the "app store", the current car's audio-visual entertainment system can be seen as a large mobile phone, the mobile phone has almost all the functions of the car machine, but due to the different requirements of different games on the computing power, the performance configuration of the car machine will directly affect the game experience.
Screen projection is much simpler, as long as the vehicle is loaded with a decoder, the Switch outputs the HDMI signal through the wired connection, and the vehicle receives the signal and then transcodes it into an image to achieve the game in the car, which does not have too high requirements for the computing power of the car machine.
Is it safe to get in the car?
Technically, getting the game in the car isn't difficult, but a real problem is that there are a lot of people who don't seem willing to embrace this new feature.
In the questions related to knowing that "playing games in the car", the attitude of netizens was surprisingly consistent, most of them pointed to safety issues, and the center of the discussion also revolved around whether the game would affect driving safety and how to ensure that the game would not distract the driver.
Such fears are not unfounded. Because of the game in the car, Tesla has been targeted by NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). At the end of 2021, according to Reuters, NHTSA said it had launched a safety investigation into 580,000 Tesla vehicles sold since 2017 because Tesla allowed users to play games through the central control screen while the vehicle was driving.
Before Tesla, some Mercedes-Benz vehicles were caused by software failures that allowed drivers to browse the Internet or watch videos while driving. To address this problem, Mercedes-Benz recalled a total of 227 EQS and S-Class sedans.
As can be seen from these incidents, from a safety perspective, driving should not be associated with most entertainment behaviors such as gaming and watching videos.
"At present, with the intensification of the process of automobile intelligence, some car companies have begun to overemphasize how the in-car entertainment system optimizes the driving experience, but ignores the risks brought by the entertainment system." Industry observer Xiao Lin told Shentu that only after the maturity of autonomous driving technology will the consumer market have demand for the entertainment function of the vehicle, and excessive entertainment will only increase the probability of driver distraction.
At the same time, Xiao Lin also pointed out that there are also certain problems in the current setting of vehicle entertainment systems by car companies. "Last week, when I took a taxi home, I called a new power brand, and the driver played the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" on the big screen of the central control all the way." Speaking of this experience, Xiao Lin still feels a little afraid, "Although I noticed that the driver was not watching a movie, but in case the driver glanced down and was distracted, it was we who finally suffered the consequences." ”
Source / Douyin Ride-hailing drivers play movies while driving
At present, domestic traffic laws mainly deduct points and fines to make drivers more focused on driving. Article 62 of the Implementing Regulations of the Road Traffic Safety Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that driving a motor vehicle shall not interfere with safe driving, such as making and receiving handheld phones, watching television, etc.
But a fine of 2 cents and 200 yuan is not a serious punishment for the driver. In Xiao Lin's view, in addition to regulatory constraints, allowing drivers to focus more on driving also requires car companies to make settings when designing products.
Deep Way learned that after being named by NHTSA, Tesla turned off the game function in the case of vehicle driving, and the game provided on the Roc car is currently only available in the parked state.
However, the car machine not only has a game, but also a video function, and even due to the increasing level of car intelligence, a large number of car companies cancel the physical button instead of the central control touch screen, resulting in many operations also need to be completed on the car machine. In August 2020, a German Tesla owner was distracted by setting the wiper speed on the touch screen, which caused a car accident.
For this situation, Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the All-China Passenger Transport Association, told Shentu: "Now the technological development is not perfect enough, car owners can not rely on automatic driving, and the functions that require multiple interactive operations, including games, will cause drivers to be distracted to a certain extent, bringing safety risks, so at present, car companies should still be cautious in developing car and machine systems." ”
Who's paying for car games?
Is the game really a pseudo demand?
Not exactly.
After seeing the game spoilers for the ideal L9, Lao Dong, who likes to drive himself, said to Shentu that this function looks good, "In long-distance driving trips, children will not bother parents when they play games in the back row." However, now that everyone has a mobile phone, the opportunity to cast a screen on the car to play Switch is still small. Lao Dong believes that their family may only think of playing games together in the car when they are tired of playing in long-distance self-driving.
Xu Yuan, the owner of the post-90s Tianjin Model 3, has long been accustomed to playing games with car machines. Whenever there is a time slot in the basement, parking lot or roadside, Xu Yuan often opens the Tesla mini-game "Sky Force Reloaded" for a while. Xu Yuan said that the happiness of adults is so simple, "The operation is very good, 3 minutes to 5 minutes a round, you can stop at any time." ”
But accepting a car machine to play a game does not mean how high their demand for a game to get on the car, whether they are willing to pay is the yardstick to test the degree of consumer demand for something.
"Tesla has a 9-block 9 premium car entertainment service package, but this is for the traffic required for maps, music and other functions, and car games do not currently need to be unlocked for a fee." Xu Yuan told Shentu that if you need to pay, you have to consider whether you need these functions, "To be honest, most of the car games are very old, I don't have so much time to play, it is already very good to play a few games occasionally, more or go home and play games with mobile phones." ”
Xian An also agrees with this point of view, he is now playing games in the car is just a way to kill time, "the actual experience of the car game is average, but the days when you can't go out now are too boring, if you want to pay, it is definitely not OK." ”
Consumers are not willing to pay, but the cost paid by car companies for the game is real.
Taking Tesla Model S Plaid as an example, Behind Musk's demonstration of "Cyberpunk 2077" with his car machine is the AMD discrete graphics card of the new car supported by super computing power. Tesla bears its own cost of the display and does not pass it on to consumers through optional allocation. According to the ideal consistent style, the ideal L9's rear cabin entertainment screen does not need to be optional, and the cost can only be borne by the ideal.
Tesla Model S Plaid Source / Tesla official website
This kind of self-funded behavior of attaching money and function, in Xiao Lin's view, is only one of the marketing means of car companies, "the simplest way to create a sense of premium is to stack functions, not necessarily used but must have, the game on the car will not bring too much cost increase, but in this way can convey to consumers a concept of our car machine, strong computing power, strong chip, improve brand influence." ”
Now to look back at the original question, do we need a car that can play games?
From the perspective of use scenarios, there is indeed a certain demand for playing games in the car, but it is only the icing on the cake and will not become a key measurement factor for consumers when buying a car.
Compared with the entertainment function, the most important thing for the car as a means of transportation is still safety. When car companies have more and more pioneering opportunities in the field of new technologies, they should look at product function design with a more rigorous eye. How to improve the degree of intelligence of the car while ensuring that the driver will not be distracted by the design of the vehicle function is a problem that needs to be carefully considered by car companies.
*The caption is from @Ideal Car. At the request of the interviewees, Xian'an, Song Xu, Zhao Ting, Xiao Lin, Lao Dong, and Xu Yuan were pseudonyms.