Elon Musk talks Tesla cars playing augmented reality games while driving

In a new Twitter comment, Elon Musk talks about possibly developing a game for Tesla cars using augmented reality game while driving… or Minecraft.

For the last two years, Tesla has been devoting some resources to integrate video games into its user experience. It plans to do more of that in the future, as Musk says that Tesla’s goal is to increase owners’ happiness and make the ownership experience more fun.

Tesla Arcade

Tesla first introduced Teslatari, an emulator of Atari games from the ’70s and ’80s that runs on Tesla vehicle computers in 2018.

They started with a few games, like Asteroids and Pole Position, but Musk said that it was only the beginning of the automaker’s venture into games inside its vehicles.

They want to add more Atari games to the emulator, but Musk has also made it clear they plan to add other games from other companies as well.

In May of last year, the CEO said that they are working on porting the Unity and Unreal video game engines to Tesla vehicles.

Later in 2019, the automaker launched Tesla Arcade, a new app within Tesla’s in-car system to launch several new video games.

The future of Tesla Arcade

Now it sounds like Musk wants to double down on Tesla Arcade with more advanced games, including augmented reality games and online Minecraft.

The CEO posted on Twitter last weekend:

Anyone think they can get a good multiplayer Minecraft working on Teslas? Or maybe create a game that interacts virtually with reality like Pokémon Go while driving safely? Like a complex version of Pac-man or Mario Kart?

It sounds like Musk would like game developers to find ways to run an online multiplayer version of the popular world builder game Minecraft on Tesla’s onboard computer.

The CEO secured a few responses from software engineers regarding that.

But what many people found even more interesting is his suggestion that Tesla vehicles could run some kind of game that interacts with reality, like Pokémon Go, a popular mobile augmented-reality game, but while the vehicle is being driven “safely.”

Someone actually faked running Pokémon Go on a Tesla vehicle years ago.

Electrek’s Take

I’d like Elon to elaborate a little on the “while driving safely” part, because I’m not exactly sure what it entails. It sounds like driving would be part of the game.

If it’s anything like Pokémon Go, that sounds crazy dangerous. People fell off ledges and hurt themselves running into each other while playing that game. I can’t imagine what that would be like if you involve a car.

Maybe he’s talking about self-driving, but it sounds like driving is part of the game play.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.