What to consider when building an MWR Gaming Station

Benefits of gaming for MWR

On top of being one of the most popular forms of recreation for young adults gaming offers several benefits specifically for military MWR programs. Video games are an excellent way to improve eye hand coordination, support teamwork and grow camaraderie among service members. When implemented correctly gaming stations can also be a cost-effective form of entertainment that require minimal involvement from facility staff to support.

Gaming Consoles

While Celebrity offers PC gaming packages this article will focus on console-based gaming systems. Stay tuned for a PC gaming centric post in the future. 

We strongly recommend that all gaming stations include both Xbox and PlayStation based consoles to ensure compatibility with platform exclusive titles. This approach has a secondary benefit of protecting each console from overuse. These products are consumer grade and designed to be played in an at home environment where they are not operating constantly. Placing them in a public facility where they may be functioning through every open hour has the potential to overheat gaming consoles and reduce their useable lifespans. By including two consoles with each station operating times are essentially cut in half. 

Purchasing the most up to date and top tier consoles is also a good idea. While that may increase your upfront cost, buying the best systems possible will keep your customers happy and future proof your gaming stations until the next generation is released.

Our recommendations as of September 2022:

Xbox — The larger Xbox Series X is the clear winner over the Series S due to 3 times the processing power, true 4K resolution and an included disk reader/Blue-ray player.

PS5 — we recommend avoiding the digital edition since it is not capable of playing physical disks and is entirely dependent on online game downloads. 

Display

The TV monitor is the next most important factor when designing a turnkey gaming station for MWR applications. Here are a three key considerations for display selection:

Size — This aspect largely depends on the space where the system will be deployed, and whether you are looking to create an individual gaming experience or a social one. Since console gamers tend to sit further back from the monitor than PC gamers, we typically recommend displays in the 55” to 65” range. That said, if you are looking to wow your customers you can always go bigger.

Resolution — Both of the console models that we recommended above support 4K display resolutions, so we suggest not going any lower than that. True 4K resolution comes out to 2,160 pixels tall by 3,840 pixels wide, four times as many as the outgoing 1080 HD resolution standard. Some manufacturers are starting to offer 8K displays, but until the next generation of gaming consoles comes out there is little point in splurging for 8K.

Runtime — Instead of paying extra for 8K resolution you are far better off upgrading to a true commercial grade display. Even more so than consoles most consumer grade TVs are only designed to be operated for a certain number of hours each day. Running them for extended periods without downtime has the potential to cause overheating, burn images into the screen and generally reduce their lifespan. In contrast, commercial grade displays are designed for use in public or professional settings where they will be on for extended periods of time, up to 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

Audio

High quality audio can take a gaming experience from good to great. It is critical for immersion, and in the case of some games can make a huge difference in the performance of the gamer. The challenge with audio for MWR is keeping it contained. You want the gamers to have a great experience, but don’t need explosions and other sound FX impacting other patrons.

Headphones — Celebrity builds professional grade headphone amplifiers into most of our turnkey gaming packages as a natural way to provide high quality audio for gamers, while containing the noise. Note that this option does come with additional considerations in terms of cleaning and maintaining the headphones between users.

Sound Domes — This optional gaming package upgrade utilizes acoustic domes and special speakers to isolate sound to just one area. The domes can be positioned right over your gaming station furniture so that only active players can hear it. In this way sound domes provide many of the benefits of headphones, without concerns around sanitation or theft that come with headphones.

Subwoofers — When sound isolation is not a concern you should go big with your subwoofer setup to provide the best experience for your customers. Deep bass is great for emulating explosions and other sound fx that add to the realism of a game.

Cooling

We touched on this earlier, but it is certainly worth bringing up again. Modern gaming consoles generate a significant amount of heat, especially when running high resolution games for an extended period. At best overheating can cause a console to go into safe mode mid-game, at worst it can damage or limit the lifespan of a machine.

Consoles have their own cooling fans, but they aren’t always enough for extended use, or installations in enclosed AV racks. Having auxiliary cooling fans built into the system can help to alleviate these issues. 

Security 

Gaming consoles are expensive and can even be difficult to find in stores. With an extensive secondary market, they are prime targets for theft. With that in mind they should never be used in a public facility without some form of security to keep them safe. The easiest way to do this is to use a locking AV rack with custom security faceplates. These plates are designed to fit each individual console with openings just large enough to access the main functions on the front of each console.

Optional locking security screens or doors can also be specified to cover the consoles completely when not in use.

Furnishings

Furnishings for your gaming customers should not be an afterthought. Comfortable seating is a very important factor in providing a relaxing environment to game in. It should also be easy to clean and provide table space for food and beverages. Celebrity offers several stylish furniture packages with countless fabric options through our existing contracts.

Contracting

While it may be possible to purchase each of the individual components discussed above through a P-Card, there are tremendous advantages to buying a complete turnkey gaming package through an existing government contract. The entire Celebrity Big Bad Game Box line is listed on our AFNAFPO and GSA contracts for easy procurement. Buying through these vehicles also ensures that the whole gaming station supported and warrantied by one vendor. You can learn more on our How To Buy page or contact us to speak to a sales representative.