LodgeNet N64

At work yesterday, I was helping a few guests move their luggage into their hotel room, when I noticed a Nintendo 64 controller sitting on the television. This sparked something in my dim memory from my childhood (more on that later), and I wondered why the hell there would be just a N64 controller in a hotel room, as I didn't see a control deck anywhere. I mentally filed this in the back of my mind and went about my work for the day. Later, I was afforded the opportunity to check one of these controllers out in more detail when I had to go move some fans around on a wet carpet that needed drying in a room. I did my work, and then opened up the TV cabinet, and sure enough there was another N64 controller sitting on the top of the TV. Well, sortof a N64 controller. There were several differences between a normal controller and this one - for one thing, it had about 6 extra buttons on the top of it, where the "Nintendo" logo usually is. The top of the controller was extended a little bit to accomodate these extra buttons, which had labels like "Mode" and "Menu". Three of the buttons were about the size of the Start button, and the others were about half that size, but they were all made of the same material that a TV remote's buttons are made of. The controller cord is also different - it's spiraled, much like a telephone cord, instead of straight like the normal cord. I wasn't able to see what the cord plugged into, as it disappeared into the cabinet and I had to get back to work. The only other info I have is that there was a logo on the controller called "LodgeNet."

I got home last night and googled "LodgeNet" and came up with this website: http://www.lodgenet.com/ Apparently they are the main provider of interactive television services for hotels in the US. This Nintendo 64 controller is part of a partnership between LodgeNet and Nintendo - the childhood memory I had upon first seeing the N64 controller was of a similar service in which Super Nintendo games could be ordered to one's hotel room at the cost of something like $5 an hour just using the added buttons on a provided controller. I searched around a bit and all I could really find detailing the old SNES service is this: http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/snes/history/lodgenet.html Apparently the N64 system works similarly, and I've heard rumor of a similar Gamecube system appearing soon.

Does anyone have any additional info on the Nintendo LodgeNet systems? I'd like to know how it works, what sort of media the games are stored upon (normal carts plugged into the system unit, or stored on memory cards, or....?), whether this system would be usable if one were able to get one home - basically anything.

If I thought I wouldn't look suspicious, I'd use one of my break times to go into the basement and see if I couldn't find the server or something, but that's not worth my job. I might try to catch my supervisor on my break at some point or something and ask her if she knows anything about the system, or could point me to someone who does. And if I had a watch camera or something, I'd get a pic of the controller, but I'd look REALLY weird taking a normal camera with me into a room.

 

Yeah I've seen those in US hotels last summer... if I recall correctly, I was amazed at the quality of the analog stick (which gets worn out really fast normally :smt019 )

 

I played one in the Hospital when I was afflicted with appendicitis. I was able to play Wave Race and Star Fox 64. You play the game via a network. It isn't sattelite, its regular wired LAN. The partnership agreement has this:

"LodgeNet Entertainment Corporation (http://www.lodgenet.com) is a specialized communications company that serves more than 4,100 lodging properties in the United States and selected international markets. Through its proprietary b-LANSM technology, LodgeNet delivers guest pay services including on-demand movies, in-room video games and shopping, Internet access and other interactive applications, as well as digital-quality PRIMESTAR by LodgeNet free-to-guest programming. LodgeNet is listed on NASDAQ and trades under the symbol LNET."

As you can see it uses a proprietary network. Now I haven't seen the device when I was in the hospital but chances are, it probably uses a special cartridge with a RJ-45 port and some RAM inside it to d/l the games onto that.

Anyway, try to get your hands on one :smt023 :smt040

 

I think the n64 carts are stored on a central server hard drive. When it's playtime the lodgenet hardware downloads it then the customer is charged $5.00
If you hear fans running in a room chances are the server is there
Mark

 

I've been down in the basement a few times, and we've got a lot of different servers for different systems scattered here and there - I haven't done much poking around on breaks, mainly because I wouldn't have a good excuse for looking around.. :smt043 I'm more interested in the other hardware - I wouldn't think that a game would be streamed back and forth from hotel room to server during actual gameplay, so there must be some actual hardware - probably in the TV itself, as the SNES article suggested - that is used after the game is initially downloaded from the server. I'm not expecting to find anything even remotely close to typical retail hardware, and that's why I'm even more interested in this.

 

Yeah it's probably the same sort of system to the Sega Channel system, there is probably somewhere (most likely embedded in the wall/furniture) a N64 with some sort of network/RAM cart.... Mmmmmmmm networked RAM cart ::drools:: rayer:

 

GC Lodgenet

When I was in New York in March my hotel room a GC controller so they have been released in some places. There was also a Playstation based one when I went to Niagra Falls. I know that with cart based sytems they could just use a ram cart but what about disk based systems?

 

Or what they could've done was that instead of having the hardware in the room, they only networked the controllers all into one main server with racks of consoles for each room that has the controller. The reason I think that way would've worked was because of Metal4ever mentioning that there were PSX games and security reasons. So instead of Networked RAM Cart, they had networked controllers it makes more sense too and cheaper.

 

I'm positive that there isn't a hidden mystical bank of consoles somewhere in the basement - I've seen nothing like that, and I have seen all of the server areas. I'm also pretty sure that the games aren't played from the server, as that is a lot of information to be sending back and forth over the TV lines. A bit of modified hardware contained in the TV as suggested before both by myself and the SNES article makes more sense.

I'll see if I can pry some info out of the maintenence guys by buying them a coffee or something next time I'm in.

 

You gotta liquor them up in order to talk. Buy them a round of Guinness :smt033 .

 

Just buy them a cup of coffee laced with truth sirope :smt023

 

They aren't just in the US (I've seen about 10 SNES Lodgenets in the US), I had a SFC Lodgenet dealy in Japan too.

 

Re: GC Lodgenet

For disc based systems there's going to have to be a disc present wherever the game is being played, so I don't see how the console hardware could possibly be in the room for the Gamecube/PSX models. Disc games can't be streamed into ram.

 

Played one of these in a hotel near disneyland on my last bitrhday. If I remember right you could select Mario 64, waverace, starfox, and one more game I can't remember. The controller looked the same as you said except for some extra buttons. Games we sellected via on screen menu. I didn't play long becasue my girlfriend at the time had other things in mind for our time there.

That was a good birthday.

 

Re: GC Lodgenet

They can, otherwise PSOloader is working by magic. Maybe Nintendo should adopt the PSOloader technology and adapt it for Hotel use. After all, a GC + BBA can have GC, N64 and NES games running perfectly on it.

 

Actually, Alchy is right, as streaming discs into ram wouldn't work in the hotel. Yes, this is how the PSOLoader works, but if you'll recall, some games don't work because the PC can't stream the data fast enough to keep the Gamecube's memory full. This is just on a dedicated connection from the PC to the Gamecube. The line that takes the SNES/N64 and presumably Gamecube (once it's released) information to the TV is also the same one that the cable TV signals are brought in on, so there's gonna be a massive bandwidth bottleneck. You'd think they'd have to develop some in-room disc solution or have the games stored on some sort of solid flash media or something.

 

Remember that dev. Gamecube that used the Portable HDD type thing? Maybe its based on that kindof technology or something *shrugs*

 

Till GSL can get us better pics....

 

Lodgenet units don't contain actual hardware to play, they stream A/V via the Lodgenet server just like the movies you can purchase. God knows whats on the other end (emulator? a bunch of systems? I never paid $6 to play a game for a half hour...) but these machines by no means have game hardware inside.

 

Have you messed with Lodgenet units before Kyuusaku? Because while I can see movies or flat out TV streaming into a room (it's the usual way to get that sort of stuff, heh) it just seems to me like having to send game data back and forth to a server would slow things up a bit. Also, I wasn't suggesting as some people think that there's a stock N64 inside the TVs, but a board or two with some flash device for storing the downloaded game. It wouldn't have to be big, as the IQue proves. It just seems odd that the controller would plug into the TV if that wasn't the case.

As far as on the other end of the pipeline, it's prolly just a server with the games on harddrive or some form of RAM carts - I can personally vouch for the complete and total absence of anything that looks close to ~56 N64 systems in the hotel I work in. :smt043