Cruis'n Blast, arguably one of the most well-known arcade games, has expanded its presence and can now be played in the comfort of our own homes. Recently announced by Raw Thrills, Cruis'n Blast is immediately available for purchase on Nintendo Switch.
This is an interesting twist to manufacturing trends. For the most part, manufacturers negotiate with the app developers and creators (Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Crossy Road, etc.) to sell their license so our industry can use the name to build their game into a bigger, quite literally, platform. Raw Thrills has done the opposite, taking their extremely popular driver and shrinking it in size to accommodate handheld play. What does this mean for our industry??? It's tough to say. Will this diminish the "fun" factor when our guests come to the arcade and see Cruis'n? Will they skip over the game because they can play it at home? On the other side, releasing it to Switch does not compare to releasing to android and apple. Today, everyone has a phone, from 2-year old's and up, and they all have access to the play store, where they can download any games they want, many times for free. Switch, although highly popular, is not in everyone's home. Perhaps Raw Thrills transitioned their game intentionally this way, understanding if they release it to the Android and Apple community the game would be water-downed and revenue would plummet...but we must ask the question, if this is successful, and the developers come calling, will this be a trend?