This Week in Pods

Put your husband in a “gaming pod” while you shop!

Nicole Dieker
Jul 21, 2017 · 2 min read
Photo credit: David Hilowitz, CC BY 2.0.

This week’s POD NEWS comes from the BBC and a Billfolder tip:

The Global Harbor mall in Shanghai has taken the “husband chair” idea one step further and turned it into a “husband gaming pod:”

Inside each individual pod is a chair, monitor, computer and gamepad, and men can sit and play retro 1990s games. Currently, the service is free, but staff told the newspaper that in future months, users will be able to scan a QR code and pay a small sum for the service using their mobile phones.

I think my favorite part of this pod story is that they’re giving away the first taste for free, as it were. Or maybe that they’re creating individual gaming pods instead of just building an arcade. The BBC reports that the glass pods aren’t very well-ventilated, but hey, what’s a little sweat—your own or the previous users’—when you can play ‘90s video games?

If you’d like to go to the source, here’s the original article about the “husband pods”—or as Google Translate calls them, “husband rest rooms”—in The Paper:

The Billfold

Everything you wanted to know about money but were too polite to ask.

Nicole Dieker

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Writer, editor, teacher. Daily posts on the art and the finances of a creative career at nicoledieker.com.

The Billfold

Everything you wanted to know about money but were too polite to ask.