A Reddit user found something pretty strange in his dentist’s waiting room: an old McDonald’s N64 video game kiosk that had been converted into an Xbox 360 arcade with multiple controllers and games.
The dentist’s office waiting room can be a tense place when you’re waiting to begin the procedure that brought you there. Even a simple cleaning or check-up can cause a lot of stress, especially for younger children who may have had a few bad experiences with dental cleaners. So instead of playing games on your phone and draining the battery, or making her read five-month-old copies of a random fashion magazine, why not let her play some Xbox 360 to distract her from her upcoming root canal? At least one dentist seems to think this is a pretty good idea.
On April 16, Reddit user Asleep-Tumbleweed-99 I posted some pictures on the Xbox 360 subreddit of an Xbox 360 kiosk hanging in his dentist’s waiting room.
“Pretty cool. [Doritos Crash Course] is what I see on one of them, and the other one just has the scoreboard on top,” Asleep-Tumbleweed-99 explained. “It was for little kids at the dentist so I didn’t really want to play it since I’m almost 30 and don’t want to seem like an idiot LOL.”
Although they didn’t play it, the user “had to post” about the discovery, adding: “You don’t see a lot of these anymore, especially an old Xbox 360.”
Others quickly chimed in and pointed out that the kiosk in the office looked a lot like this N64 machines found in some McDonald’s restaurants Back in the late 90s and early 2000s. However, if you look a little closer, it’s not just an old N64 kiosk with some Xbox 360 consoles stuck into it.
The real story behind this Xbox 360 dental kiosk
At first I thought someone had taken an old kiosk and cleaned it up, removing the McDonald’s logo from the tall pole sticking out of the top, repainting the red dome silver, and pulling out the old screens and consoles. These were then replaced by three devices from a company called Kidz Pacewhich sells standalone video game units designed for restaurants, businesses, hospitals, hotels and basically anywhere else bored kids might be waiting.
However, upon closer inspection, I realized that this device is not a renovated kiosk from the 90s, but a product that was previously sold by KidzPace. A representative told me that they no longer offer the Xbox 360 model. But I found a 2017 YouTube video
Upon closer inspection, it’s likely that the company reused leftover cases from these old N64 kiosks, because that’s what I found out after doing further research KidzPace made these old McDonald’s machines even then. In fact, they are still make games for the fast food giant to this day.
If you are curious, Purchase only one Xbox Series S standalone gaming unit from KidzPace in 2024 will cost you $3,395 and shipping is not included, a representative told me. Yikes!
Anyway, so what were we talking about again?
Oh yeah, yeah, that weird old Xbox 360 kiosk in the dentist’s office that someone posted on Reddit. Yes, it’s real. It was something you could buy, and it’s probably not made from a real old McDonald’s N64 kiosk. But it probably shares some DNA with those nostalgic devices, and maybe some plastic too.
I’m going to stop looking into this now before I find some new information that leads me down another rabbit hole.
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