BattleTech Centers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A typical pod bay of 2.5 or 3.0 cockpits.

A VR 2.5 or 3.0 cockpit.

A 1993 mission log sheet from the BattleTech Center in Chicago.

BattleTech Centers are commercial virtual entertainment venues that feature multiplayer virtual combat in the fictional BattleTech universe of fighting robots. The centers were created and operated by Virtual World Entertainment LLC.

The first center opened in Chicago in 1990, with others in Yokohama following in August 1992 and Tokyo in 1993. Eventually 26 such centers were built and included other game types and more elaborate operations. Each centers featured at least 16 networked "pods" designed in part by Frog Design.

By 1993, patrons could compete against players in other centers across the country. The Red Planet Game was the first non-BattleTech game added, and involved racing through the canals of Mars using anti-grav mining carts.

However, rapid advances in arcade games and online games meant that the Japanese Centers began closing in 1995, and by 2000 no BattleTech Centers remained operational in Japan.

Virtual World Entertainment later merged with FASA Interactive Technologies(FIT) and became Virtual World Entertainment Group(VWEG).

In 1999, Microsoft Corporation purchased VWEG, and sold the VWE component and integrated FASA Interactive into the Microsoft Game Studios division.

Virtual World Entertainment continues to develop and support the current iteration of BattleTech VR running on the Tesla II platform called BattleTech: Firestorm

In November of 2005, MechCorps Entertainment, LLC in Houston, Texas, USA opened is doors to the public with eight Tesla II pods. They acquired another four pods in 2007, and hosted the 2007 National BattleTech Invitational in September 2007 with all twelve pods operational.

In 2006, hardcore players in Japan purchased 4 Tesla pods from the US, and began to put together an 'unofficial' Virtual World Center in Tokyo. Despite many key components becoming 'Lostech' and their spare parts no longer available in market, the 4 pods are now semi-operational, though no commercial operation has resumed yet.

In 2008, Virtual World Entertainment will release an update version of Red Planet capable of running on the current Tesla II pod design and hardware.