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The Starlight Nintendo Switch Gaming Station is now available in US hospitals

Rösti

Rösti

Member
Oct 25, 2017
801
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News item from December 10, 2020, about the new Starlight Nintendo Switch Gaming Station, originally revealed last year, being sent to hospitals across US.

Starlight Nintendo Switch Gaming stations are making their way to hospitals and health care facilities across the country!

As our newest addition to Starlight Gaming, each station comes preloaded with more than 25 games from Super Mario Party to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Specifically manufactured to meet strict infection safety protocols, Gaming stations can roll anywhere in the hospital and keep kids entertained and distracted, which is especially important with many playrooms closed due to COVID-19.

We unveiled the latest addition last year at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital in Tacoma, Washington, which was one of the first hospitals to receive a station!
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Over the past 28 years, our partnership with Nintendo of America has delivered 7,200 Starlight Nintendo Gaming stations to over 800 hospitals and healthcare facilities all over the country.
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Source: https://www.starlight.org/stories/the-starlight-nintendo-switch-gaming-station-is-here/

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About Starlight Children's Foundation

We deliver happiness to seriously ill children and their families at more than 800 children's hospitals and health care facilities in the US.

Our state-of-the-art programs like Starlight Virtual Reality, Starlight Hospital Wear, and Starlight Gaming entertain, distract, and inspire hospitalized kids.

Since 1982, Starlight has brought smiles to more than 16 million seriously ill children and their families.
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Wilsongt

Wilsongt

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,507
I remember being a kid in the hospital once and the nurses brough in a SNES for me to play. It was awesome
 
tobes231

tobes231

Prophet of Truth
Member
Jul 10, 2019
620
Australia
The first time I played Pikmin was when I was in hospital and they had the starlight GameCube setups. I'll never forget that.
 
InfiniDragon

InfiniDragon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,316
Wilsongt said:
I remember being a kid in the hospital once and the nurses brough in a SNES for me to play. It was awesome
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My brother and I were also super sick as kids (born premature and have severe asthma as a result), and our parents bought us an NES (and later SNES) because we couldn't go outside and lived in children's hospitals for extended periods of time. We took them with us to the hospital and when we were well enough to go out of the private room, we'd take it into the common play area and hook it up so everyone could play.

We'd spend hours with kids just doing that, was good times despite the awful circumstances.
 
Borman

Borman

Digital Games Curator at The Strong Museum
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
844
Were lucky enough to have a SNES version at the museum. The work that companies do to get games into hospitals is so important.
 
Alric

Alric

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,947
Wonder how I could see about the Hospital I work at getting a few of these for the Children wards.
 
TheOther

TheOther

Member
Jan 10, 2019
1,794
Texas
Something kinda on topic, if you want to get rid of a console there are specific charities that will take them as donations for thing specifically like this.
 
aisback

aisback

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,745
I've always love Nintendo hospital stuff.

I remember seeing n64 in the children's hospital set up like this.


Good on Nintendo
 
Hero of Legend

Hero of Legend

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,614
I fucking lived for this stuff. As someone who practically grew up in hospitals (I'm not joking, I'd have like 4 surgeries a year at points), I got to play these all the time back in the 90's and early 2000's.

For SNES they were exclusively just accompanying the classic CRT TV stands that would usually come with an actual VCR. Fun fact, this was my first ever gaming experience with Super Mario All-Stars in I think 1993-95. It's why I became and gaming and Nintendo fan.

For N64 they did have the Starlight machine which was this chunky thing that had a small TV with a VCR and the N64. This was the ultimate entertainment center for kids and we only had one on the floor... and i was the one who usually got to play with it (but of course I'd give it up if others wanted it!).

For GC they upgraded to the more current style kiosk with an actual LCD TV, but it had a DVD player in it with the discs you'd have to reach inside to play IIRC through a round hole. At least I think it was, maybe it was GC-only and no movie attachment?

I grew out of my children's hospital era right before the Wii came out so I never got to try out the Wii and Wii U kiosks, but they were certainly interesting devices. Seemingly now going with a very smart "digital library" option. Yes even on Wii! Must've had a special build with a big HDD or something.

Also note I'm in Canada and our models are identical save for the differing Starlight logo. Ours still use the older (better) logo with "Canada" underneath it.

Edit: Photos I found:

N64:

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GC:

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Stencil

Stencil

Member
Oct 30, 2017
10,381
USA
That's dope. I remember in an after school babysitting program (Kid's Club) I smashed my face on a stool and damn near broke my skull, and they let me hang out in the staff room. One of the employees/supervisor/babysitter let me play his gameboy while I nursed my face. It was the best salve.

Love to see it.
 
Nolbertos

Nolbertos

Member
Dec 9, 2017
3,316
So now after vilifying Nintendo because of Etika joycons and other negative practices, ERA is now praising Nintendo. Make up your mind ERA.
 
awake4ages

awake4ages

Neo•Geo Saver
Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,070
Nolbertos said:
So now after vilifying Nintendo because of Etika joycons and other negative practices, ERA is now praising Nintendo. Make up your mind ERA.
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Ah here we go. A thread about literally providing donations to children in hospitals about to be shit up with this rhetoric.

Shut the fuck up.
 

Coricus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,537
Nolbertos said:
So now after vilifying Nintendo because of Etika joycons and other negative practices, ERA is now praising Nintendo. Make up your mind ERA.
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You mean the Etika Joy-Cons that were literally a man trying to profit off of the memory of a suicide victim to advertise his own store, without asking permission from the man's family and while grifting as hard as possible? Those Etika Joy-Cons?

But as perpetuallyawake said, that's not really the point. The criticism there was that Nintendo was potentially doing something cruel to those in need. Now in this thread we have a situation where they're explicitly doing something kind. Why should we not provide positive reinforcement when a corporation does the right thing as a counterbalance to the negative reinforcement provided when they do the wrong thing? If you make a car with a gas pedal and no brakes, you're just going to veer off in a new unfortunate direction every time you try to change something.

Sometimes Nintendo makes gaming kiosks so that sick kids can have a less horrible stay in the hospital. We can have a thread just about that. If you're looking at sick kids playing Mario games and all you can think about is how mad you are that you can't pirate video games? Maybe that says more about you.
 
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