As AirConsole announce their partnership with BMW making in-car gaming an iminent reality, we chat to Anthony Cliquot, CEO of N-Dream, about where the idea came from, how it got this far, and where he sees this technology going in the future.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

PocketGamer.biz: Can you give us a bit more information about the history of the AirConsole, and the inspiration behind it?

For us the story has always been the same: accessibility. When we were looking at what has happened in the gaming industry since the beginning of the century, we saw that accessibility was one of the key drivers for revenue within it. So when mobiles became smartphones, essentially it opened a whole new area of games for an audience that before then probably did not consider themselves as gamers.

So this whole new casual gaming trend came along, and…traditionally, either you have a game console, and you can play games using game pads, or you're stuck with these horrible html5 gaming experiences using a remote control. So we thought, hey, we need to solve the input problem, and this is how we can create accessibility. So we went on and created a gaming platform that uses a smartphone as a controller, with that idea in mind, and that has worked quite well for us. We've launched a lot of partnerships with Google, Android TV, Amazon Fire OS, where our platform is now available, but we also work with telecom operators in some regions.

And then one day, the automotive industry started knocking at our door. So at firs, very focused on our TV journey and roadmap, I thought ‘what is going on? Why am I getting call after call from the automotive industry, claiming that the car is becoming the next living room very soon, and we want to have content…including gaming - you cannot make an entertainment system for everyone if you do not add gaming.

That was one of the interesting things that happened in the recent history of our company where we found ourselves thinking - all the technology that we've got to solve the thing on the TV with no input problems, everybody being able to join and play games in an accessible way, because everybody owns a smartphone these days - can apply inside the vehicle

It's interesting that it was the car manufacturers who came to you, rather than the other way around.

BMW specifically at the beginning came to us. And it’s not only BMW that we've been approached by, but dozens of car manufacturers, because our technology definitely enables them to provide an experience in the car that is far beyond what is currently on the market. If you look around, there are a couple of cases. You can play in the aeroplane with the touch screen, and let's face it, that is not revolutionising, and probably not so popular because of the input system. Then on the other side, you have Tesla that created games where you're using the steering wheel as a controller. Now, all that said, Nothing is more accessible than AirConsole, because everybody has a smartphone. If you're shipping a car with this beautiful, magnificent display in the front, it's a shame if you let people touch that, and get fingerprints everywhere! It's a shame if your user is actually playing on these tiny mobile screens while sitting in front of a TV in the car, right? So for the OEMs [Original Equipment Manufacturers] it became very clear - not only we could make a big impact by offering games, but we could now take the lead in that race because we will be the only car company offering multiplayer gaming within a vehicle. And that's how the story came about.

In terms of the playing within the vehicle, are you going to have content based on how many screens there are in the car, and where they are positioned, so it’s kind of location based?

There's so many things to explore with that, like there's so far that it can go. It's an entirely new ecosystem in which we are trailblazing, because there's so many new things that will enable the creativity of game developers to make the next level of entertainment. People have been playing in cars forever, I remember being a child, and my parents would drive me on a road trip, and we would play ‘Hey, guess what animal I'm thinking about’, or count how many red signs on the side of the road, this kind of very casual social interaction that you would have in a vehicle. And today, we're super proud that we've been chosen by the automotive industry, and BMW particularly, to spearhead how we're going to turn the social experience that we all know into the next level, and bring the next level of quality in games.

One of the points that you were touching upon is very interesting as well. What does it mean, ‘gaming inside the car’? It's so interesting, because right now the core OEMs are realising ‘hey, in a few years from now, 30% of the time you will spend in the car will be spent interacting with content’.You know, there is a reason that electric vehicles are becoming a thing, it's a very solid trend and and many car companies are now shifting to electric vehicles, some have been there for a while already.

Many great German European car makers are switching to electric, which means you must be spending a lot of time inside that car while it’s charging. Not everybody is privileged to have a charging station at their home, so they need to go to a charging park somewhere. Those people end up waiting 30 to 45 minutes in the car, and you need to offer them entertainment. I think now we're touching on the visionary, stepping into this idea that in the future, with the new domain level in the car, the car is going to become a second living room - you're going to be sitting there and you will expect entertainment to be available. So you're really trying to make all those OEMs ready for that transition - BMW specifically.

One thing I do wonder about is the safety side of it, distracting the driver for example. Is there anything that you're putting in place to ameliorate that?

We're feeling very safe. And it's a brilliant question, because obviously when you think about getting in the car, it's like, ‘wow, does that mean that people are driving next to me who are not on the steering wheel anymore?’ No! The beauty is that today, regulations do place certain limitations, so when we're talking about gaming, our first big step is the static use case. We're going to first launch a product that is dedicated to delivering a solution while the car is not driving above five kilometres per hour. Why? We're going to first start to get the main screen, which is going to be in every vehicle. Optional rear seat entertainment comes as a statute. We're very happy to enlarge the use cases and then obviously the ‘while driving use’ case will grow. And that's something that we're working on.

For the first use case, we're talking about summer next year, so July 2023.Then all vehicles at BMW will be equipped with our technology, enabling the screens to offer this entertainment while the vehicle is stopped.

So is there exclusivity in your agreement with BMW? As soon as this happens, everybody car manufacturer is going to want to do it, surely?

Yes. So it's very important for us to have a strong partner that has the commitment to join forces to spearhead games inside the vehicle. It was, for us, important to find the best potential partner for that. And BMW has shown to be that partner, we're extremely excited to do it with them, therefore there is a certain commitment on both sides. There is a financial commitment of all hands, and there is a commitment to allowing one company to be the first at that type of entertainment.

Now, in terms of exclusivity, we're not talking for a very long period when we're looking at the car industry, because the production cycles are very long. And here is the thing for both companies - it is obvious today that both parties will benefit greatly by not setting a long time window, you know, it's it's a two way wedding type thing for both companies. It’s very clear that there is an appeal in creating a vibrant ecosystem within the automotive industry, and that the solution will spread out to other OEMs in the near future. So that's going to be the target. Of course, when it comes to the games industry, one of the key advantage for us - because we can't talk about exclusivity inside the car - but what we can say is that, technologically speaking, we have a very nice opportunity to become the standard for in-car entertainment. This is created by the fact that our architecture that was quite smart on TV is today almost unbeatable in the vehicle.

Also because we render the games locally, we have a client side rendering, and we do a delivery over the air of those games. So you need an internet connection to access the game, and then the games can be played because it's rendered locally. If you look at any cloud gaming solution today, none of them are capable of providing an experience in a vehicle, simply because there's no guarantee that the connectivity will feed the high bandwidth requirements. And I mean, we've played cloud gaming, we know how it is if you don't have a great connection! So it's something you don't want to offer if you're not absolutely certain that your connectivity and the graphical unit are there. That's definitely why today, AirConsole is ideally positioned.

If we extend on that, if you think about publishers and content owners, we are becoming now thanks to this position, an enabler. If you want to play some content in a car, you're going to have to work with us to bring content and that's not something we're unfamiliar with. AirConsole Today already has games on the platforms - a lot of those games can be found on Steam, can be found on Nintendo Switch, so we've been porting games forever. Now today, of course, as you mentioned we need to be creative. We're in the car, we have a different setup, we have a different ecosystem, we have different tools available. And you know, we will know where you are, where you're going, how long you will be inside the vehicle and the content you are using, all these facts and data. So that's very exciting for many content owners and publishers out there to come and spearhead that initiative with us.

I'm interested to see what happens after it's rolled out. Will the fact that the player is situatted inside a car inform how content is created, for eample?

I'm super excited about it, too. I mean, to be frank, I was sitting just a couple of days ago in one of their BMW Series 7, that's going to be coming out very soon. It's a fantastic car, obviously, an overkill in engineering - you could think, it's a very luxury car, a lot of space, the seat gives you 15 different types of massage, right?

And today, what the entertainment can do…there's been radio since forever, there has been a navigation system since forever, but what do they bring in entertainment? BMW can say now, ‘hey, we have great multiplayer games free to play!’. And in that car, I felt like I was in a gaming chair, with the sound setup, the old ecosystem at work. I was lucky to see all these happy faces of people that would not consider themselves gamers playing around, have a casual football game or a casual racing game, and you see them really getting engaged.

I pictured this, right? You're at the charging station, waiting in your car. Next to you there’s another car, and it's a BMW, you're basically playing here on your phone while you have a big screen in front of you... and they are having fun! They have a massive screen where four people are joining and playing together… I would totally regret not having bought a BMW.

I think that's why it works - they've got good sound systems, all of this high spec gadgetry going on anyway, so it's sort of a natural progression isn’t it?

They are designing those cars in the future, and we're talking about accessible models, which I like because the DNA of our company is about accessibility, right? But we're looking at every single car that will be produced after 2023 that can potentially be equipped by biotechnology. That's the beauty. Because we're not only talking about the seven series or the five series of this world, we're talking about things like a Mini Cooper, because that's also part of the DNA. We're talking about vehicles that are accessible and eventually, as you mentioned, the rest of the industry will definitely want a part of that when it comes to entertainment.