Obsessively Cataloging Video Game "Pop" Culture
The guy hanging out behind the konbini in The Convenience Store | 夜勤事件 warns of impending doom, but I’m drawn to the soothing glow of the soda machines like a moth to the flame.
Here’s the same scene without the game’s staticky VHS camera filter.
With all these soda machines around, do we really even need to ask the protagonist of ANNIE: Last Hope if she’s okay?
Alternate blurb: So many soda machines in ANNIE: Last Hope, yet here I am without any loose change. Talk about a hard knock life! [Source]
A question from a trivia game about a hypothetical Shakespearean Coke machine counts as a video game soda machine, right?
So, do you think this soda machine from World End Syndrome is located outside of a restaurant and coffee shop that sells fishing gear on the side, or a fishing gear shop that dabbles in the cafe business? Either way, I admire the owner’s sense of entrepreneurship.
Here’s a look at Sazanami Street after dark…
Thanks for the screenshots, SalarymanDaishi!
I’m not quite convinced this is the ultimate vending machine, but who am I to argue with Takayuki? While this same drink machine previously appeared in √Letter, it received a visual upgrade for Root Letter: Last Answer. Thanks for the screenshot, SalarymanDaishi!
Deus Ex: The Fall, a spin-off from the main series featuring protagonist Ben Saxon, launched on mobile devices in 2014 and was later ported to Windows. The screenshot above is from the Windows version and features lower polygon-count versions of the vending machines that appeared in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Thanks for the screenshot, Trundles!
Slip on a lobster costume and go for a long-distance run past these roadside soda machines in Nippon Marathon. And remember, kids — just like in real life, popularity affects your final score.
Thanks for the screenshots, SalarymanDaishi!
After Lucasfilm Games released its breakthrough MMO Habitat in 1986, Fujitsu licensed the technology to create its own Fujitsu Habitat for the Japanese market in 1990. Fujitsu would later purchase the Habitat IP outright and use the underlying technology to launch the WorldsAway virtual world on CompuServe in 1995. Fujitsu went on to localize WorldsAway for the Japanese market, releasing it for Windows, Macintosh, and the Sega Saturn as Habitat II in 1996.
With all of that history out of the way, the screenshot above features a beverage-dispensing vendroid unit, which provided players with soda, coffee, hot chocolate, and other drinks they could use to customize their avatars.
Thanks to RenoProjectIV on Twitter for filling in some of these historical details! You can learn much, much more about Habitat and its follow-ups at the official RenoProject archive.
I’m awarding bonus points to this Energy Drink Potion machine from Final Fantasy VII remake for its savvy bench ads. After all, bench advertising is a cost-efficient way to generate high impressions and enhance brand recognition across a wide demographic range. Even a mercenary like Cloud Strife knows that’s good business.
Thanks for the screenshot, Oscar!
