Pong coffee table brings the old-school arcade to your lounge room

[MUSIC] All right, welcome back CNET super fans. Welcome back to our live coverage of To CS 2018 I'm Claire Riley and with me is Walter McGarro here to show us a really cool spin on an an old school pong game. We have been playing quietly before we started during the break and I am not going well So you're probably familiar with the old school Atari game, Pong, but this is kind of like an updated coffee table version of the game. I'm really, okay, all right, I've not done well at this. So what we've got here is a physical coffee table. And this isn't actually a digital screen. We've actually got physical sliders here. Knocking a pong ball back and forth. Walter, why have you decided to make a physical coffee table version of Pong? Well, first place, the guy that created this, he wanted to make a homage to the first video game in history, which was Pong back in 72. And he wanted to along incorporate design Things to it maybe to make it functional. We incorporated also speakers through bluetooth, for example to produce music and also play the game. We wanted to take some distance of the classic digital, that kind of thing that are very popular today. All right, so I'm gonna serve it to you. I just pressed the button. Yeah, that's right. The thing I'm not going great at is getting the angles. Like I used to play this when I was really young and I always sucked at those side angle balls. But I love it how this just kind of zooms back. How are we controlling this? Cause it looks like it's a physical bar. How are you actually controlling it under the table? Well yes a [UNKNOWN] of motors with [INAUDIBLE] And magnets on case cased by sliding on the- Okay, so magnets sliding underneath the table. It's like when you play with magnets beneath a table, trying to move them around. Okay. That's the [INAUDIBLE] the concept. All right, so it's pretty simple and kind of high tech and low tech at the same time. Exactly, yep. And it's probably a, gosh I'm not going great. This is a zero to four game Is it hard to play or am I just really terrible at this? Or is it Day 1 of CES and I've already got some city miles on me? Well, we are on beginner's speed. This is beginner's speed? What happens if we go to higher speed? Well, it will move really fast. I get owned? You couldn't catch the ball. Okay, awesome. And there's also, okay, so it's first to seven. Hasn't worked ideally for me. there's also a bluetooth speaker, it might be a little out on the stage i don't know we got but we can play it here on music when you sync it up. Okay Has it got a solo and two Two player mode? You can play against the AI of the machine. You can play against a friend. Or an enemy. A sworn enemy. Or an enemy, of course. I'll play against a sworn enemy. So, what's the AI like, if I try against AI? How smart is your AI? Go ahead. All right, one player. Gosh. [BLANK_AUDIO] See? The AI isn't as cruel as you are, Walter. [LAUGH] Or maybe it is. I'm holding my own. Gosh, gosh. And so how long have you guys been developing the table, because it's obviously, you've gone through prototype stages. Yes, exactly. Well the idea, the conception of idea was by Daniel, our moment was great, was in 2014. 2014, all right. It was a long way. From there, the company was invited to the Y exhibition, it was one of the only companies in the Americas to go there. From there we go to get Kickstarter. Kickstarter was a major success. A Kickstarter. How much did you raise through your Kickstarter? We were asking for 250 and we got 335k. Wow, that's amazing. I really love that I'm doing interview based mode where I have to talk to you whilst playing a relatively simple game. But I just cannot do it. This is like It's- You are quite good. It's 5 to 3 only. In October last year we sign an exclusive manufacturing and distribution agreement with [UNKNOWN] technologies. And so you're starting to sell it now. That's the great thing. So who's gonna be buying one of these? It's 27.99? [INAUDIBLE] Okay. We expect to see this I know at homes or. [NOISE] Bars, clubs, entertainment centers. Why is that sound so cruel? Why do you have to just make it sound like I'm a failure? Do you want to play two player again? Okay let's go. It's on. Okay so we're just choosing highest players number first. All right, you serve. So do you reckon the superfans are gonna buy this or do you reckon it's more likely that I'll go and play it down at my local pub? Well, I think it's a game for everyone. It [UNKNOWN] from 31 to 80-years-old, who have experienced the Atari era. Also also one, as even with design that they can put in the living room or recreation area. Also, the bars because you can have a beer on it, a pizza, whatever you want. Yeah, I kind of don't want to have it in my lliving room because it'd be a reminder of my constant failings. Yeah, corner shot. So how much Pong have you played, now developing this game? How much pong did I play? I don't keep the numbers. Too many hours? Would you say you're a bit of a pro? I don't know if a pro. Danny Apordomo the guy who created this, he beats me all the time. All right look. Yes. I'm not great at this. I'm so sorry but thank you so much for joining us today.