A MAME cabinet. An upper-decker LAN party. Flashy PC cases.
It’s the kind of gear you’d expect out the front of a PC retailer. Except it’s not. It’s a PAX booth. For Harvey Norman.
Given Gerry Harvey’s cantankerous attitude towards online shopping and the retailer’s general lack of enthusiasm for the hardcore gaming market, it’s weird to see them have a presence at PAX.
PAX usually isn’t the place you go for the hard sell. That’s EB Expo. PAX is where you see your distributors, component manufacturers, devs, panels, tabletop retailers. Brick and mortar stores that make mad bank off Fitbits and vacuum cleaners? Nope. Not PAX.
But Gerry Harvey and co. have made a real effort this year, seriously. Here’s some photos from the show floor:
When did Harvey Norman get into the neon-coloured, flashy PC case game?
The MAME cabinet is pretty cool. Also, massively not-Harvey Norman.
OK, a LAN party with Battlefield and COD bros is pretty on brand for Harvey Norman.
All things aside, it’s still so weird. Harvey Norman don’t usually court gamers – mostly because they don’t sell what gamers want, and when they do it’s never at a decent price. Could the PAX booth be part of a change in strategy?
Yeah, probably not. But hey. Enjoy the free LAN party and MAME cabinet while they last, I suppose.
Comments
15 responses to “Harvey Norman Has A PAX Booth And It’s Weird”
Someone at Harvey Norman really wanted to go to PAX for free, well played Sir and/or Madam
Definitely.
I now want someone to look into whether HN paid for that copy of 1945 for legit usage or if Gerry Harvey’s company just dabbled in *gasp* piracy…
Not to mention the egregious copyright violations of that sloppily applied Mario art.
Mario, DK & TMNT… would imply its not just a MAME it also includes an Nintendo emulator.
Those 3 you listed are all arcade games as well.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
And if they do have a license, is it for personal use or does it also include public performance of the work?
They currently have 2999 on it so it might be legit
Someone in middle management needs to be applauded for taking the initiative imo
This is the vibe I’m getting:
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/018/666/fellowkids.jpg
Last time I considered buying computer hardware from harvey norman it was 4g of ram to put into my laptop, I was happy to pay a premium of $25 or so just for the convenience of having it RIGHT NOW, they wanted almost $140.
I walked out, ordered a better brand from a reputable seller and had it delivered for $32. the ram itself was only $24 or something.
A lumbering behemoth of a chain store simply can’t hope to compete in the rapidly changing PC components market. The stock turnover rates to stay ahead of the falling prices is simply beyond their abilities.
If I remember right they had a small presence last year, with flashy PC’s, but it was on the outter rim and was pretty small. Guess it was successful and this year they went bigger.
Does Gerry has a spunky millennial grandkid who hacked into his computer and made this happen?
Over hyped, over priced, and worst of all, over here!