Japan is known for many things like tech-savvy citizens, fast trains, electronics industry, weird fashion and vending machines. Google is trying to enter the last mentioned market and is piloting three Google Play machines that offer 18 different games.
Everyone with an NFC-enabled Android 4.0+ smartphone can try these out and get either free-to-play or paid-for titles. Yeah, you don’t actually have to pour out a single Yen to give it a shot (if you go for free games).
To grab a game from one of these machines, simply rest the phone on the tray below the screen, and let the NFC magic do the rest. You’ll see a slick unified animation “pouring content” from the giant touchscreen to your Android phone.
Sounds pretty cool though we have to try it ourselves to make a judgment call.
Best of all, these machines could also offer you a Nexus 4 to try it out. We’re not sure how this works but we guess Google employees placed around the machine are there to help you out while making sure you don’t walk away with a Nexus smartphone.
The way I see things, vending machines like these are great for malls, airports, bus and railway stations where people gather and more often than not, have more time to spare than they would like to. We’ll see whether the search giant will export these to other parts of the world…
[Via: Engadget]