Review ICE TOTALLY GAMING 2017
IGT CEO International, Walter Bugno IGT presents its Crystal Clear vision at ICE ‘17
G3 seized the opportunity to discuss products, strategy, complementary legacy, and the future of IGT, with CEO International, Walter Bugno. Tying together both the past and the present is the sensational product that is the new SPHINX 4D
By today’s standards the GTECH booth at G2E in 2012 was a fairly modest affair, but what was brewing on that stand five years ago has become one of the industry’s most amazing technical achievements and stunning entertainment titles. At that Las Vegas show GTECH’s Walter Bugno, now Chief Executive Officer – IGT International, explained to G3 that he was revealing a product to customers behind- closed-doors that was simply “blowing their minds.” Tat product was SPHINX 3D™.
Fast forward to ICE 2017 and the latest version of SPHINX 4D™ was again blowing minds on the IGT booth in London. Te game that premiered at G2E 2016 has since been updated with new experiences and new bonuses in addition to the glasses-free 3D and amazing 4D mid-air haptic touch and gesture technologies. SPHINX 4D is housed on the CrystalCurve™ TRUE 4D™ cabinet with a 32-inch touchscreen display and a towering 50-inch Ultra HD, curved upper 4K display. SPHINX 4D was joined at ICE by Te Voice Video Slots on the 4K CrystalCurve ULTRA™ cabinet, new versions of Fort Knox® video slots and Harley-Davidson® video slots on the 4K CrystalCurve™ cabinet, ZUMA™ 3D and Jurassic World™ 3D on the AXXIS™ 3D cabinet. IGT also demonstrated a series of progressives such as Wan Shi Ru Yi™, Egyptian Empire™ and Super Red Hot Jackpots™.
P74 NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE /
247.COM
G3 also took the opportunity to play Siege VR on the booth, a virtual reality game using the HTC Vive hardware to place players on the ramparts of a castle, repelling marauding invaders with a realistically drawn and fired stream of arrows. Te game is fast, completely immersive and a compelling look at how VR can be incorporated into a score-based skill-gaming mechanic, sure to appeal to a millennial audience.
Additional skill-based and interactive titles from IGT on the booth in London included Race Ace™ Arcade, the newest addition to IGT’s Skillcade™ portfolio. Race Ace Arcade is a skill-based driving experience that sandwiches players between three monitors and is paired with a sophisticated motion chair that transports players to a virtual competitive road race environment. Te chair twists, turns, rumbles and vibrates, giving players the sensation of participating in a real-life auto race. Other marquee skill-based games included the ‘omni- channel’ story-based game, Lucky’s Quest™ and the Video Reel Edge™ hybrid skill themes Texas Tea® Pinball®, Cleopatra® Pinball®, Little Fish Big Fish™ and Fuzzy’s Fortune™.
What was incredible about the diverse IGT offer, was that you could spend the entire three days of the ICE show on the booth and you still wouldn’t have time to experience everything IGT poured into that exhibit. Speaking again to
Walter Bugno about the launch of a new SPHINX game was an opportunity to reflect both on the incredible journey and significance of that product within the corporate evolution of the business that is IGT today.
“G2E 2016 was our coming of age as a company – it was like our debutant’s ball,” states Mr. Bugno. “At that show, the overwhelming comments we received as an organisation spoke of how we’d transformed as a company. Our presence at ICE is an enhancement of that. Yes, you’ll see all the products from G2E (plus another 4-5 months of development), but you’ll also see the complete portfolio: traditional gaming, online and mobile, VLTs, ETGs, systems and lotteries. It’s all here now. Tis stand encapsulates everything IGT is for the next 12 months and presents it to the world.”
April 7, which is just a few weeks away, represents two years since the coming together of IGT and GTECH. What’s significant about that date isn’t just the hugely impressive product portfolio shown at ICE, but the complementary synching together of the two businesses in such a short space of time. Despite the fact that it’s the IGT name above the door, the interweaving of GTECH within the fabric of IGT has permanently altered its DNA. IGT is not the same company it was two years ago – and that’s a great thing.
“We can always do things better,” concedes Mr. Bugno, “but we made a change during the legacy side of GTECH in 2013, in which we went from being a product siloed business to a geography driven business. We did that at the time because what rules our business should not be the product; what rules our business should be the
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107