“Advantech is debuting three new products at G2E Las Vegas”

What is 'Gaming Intelligence' all about?

Our customers, the slot machine manufacturers, increasingly are looking for more intelligence in the products and services we provide. This theme 'Gaming Intelligence' aptly encompasses our products, our knowledge of the industry and our added value hardware and software solutions. Our standard products provide customers with the latest technology in the form of gaming specific hardware platforms for the intelligent heart of today’s sophisticated slot machines.  Our expert team has over 15 years’ experience in the industry and can help customers with the design in process. Our range of software solutions add further intelligence with functions such as media validation, SAS networking, security and diagnostics.  Finally for customers requiring custom-designed products we can add intelligence in the form of custom FPGA and additional micro-controllers with custom firmware for sophisticated security, control and supervisory functions.  So gaming intelligence is the total package that we offer our customers.

What can you tell us about the new platforms you're introducing? What are your expectations for the trade show?

The three new products we are debuting at G2E are quite different from each other showing the range of specialization that is needed to address the needs of the gaming OEMs in different markets.  The DPX-E135 has been developed in response to customers’ requests for a cost effective platform with good performance, passive cooling (no CPU or system fans) and which allows them to use the robust industry- proven connectors and harnessing that they prefer in the slot machine environment. 

The key feature of the DPX-E135 is the “cabinet-ready I/O” section which makes the DPX-E135 easy to connect inside a slot machine and easy to service.  No backplane or separate connectorboards are needed. The second product, the DPX-S440 is a next generation product in our highly successful S –series product family.  The S-Series range of boards go back 6 generations and is our most popular product line.  The DPX-S440 steps up performance of CPU and graphics over the current generation offering the fastest integrated graphics of any platform available without using a discrete GPU or graphics card.  Finally we are showing at G2E the DPX-E250 an extended mini-ITX format board without the full feature set of gaming I/O that we have on the other DPX boards but with security features needed by customers who already have an IO solution they wish to use but need a gaming compliant high performance platform.

We expect G2E to be well attended as usual and look forward to interfacing with customers old and new.  It's a great event to show our new products and discuss with customers from all over the world.  Advantech will attend the show with around fifteen sales, marketing and product related staff who themselves will travel to the show from our offices in UK, Netherlands, Taiwan, and across USA.

What are the main challenges and opportunities you're seeing in the US, in terms of legislation?

New legislation in markets such as Louisiana have spurred good sales for our products.  Since our products are tried and tested in the most highly regulated markets including Nevada, Montana, New Jersey, Illinois, Mississippi, customers in other markets and even grey markets as the regulations are tightened come to us for a proven platform that they know will allow them to meet the new regulations.  Our new products also have some new hardware features in response to changing regulations in several European countries.

At this year's edition of ICE, mobile gambling was one of the most discussed trends amongst exhibitors and attendees. Do you think the same will happen at G2E Las Vegas?

Yes, mobile gaming and internet based gaming will no doubt be hot topics at G2E.  Some of Advantech’s industrial tablets, point of sale and hospitality products have been used in mobile and internet based gaming. We don’t foresee the end of the casino slot machine in the near future, however, since many gamblers still prefer a venue with all the services and entertainment options of a traditional casino type experience.

Would you please brief us about your plans, immediate and long term, for the group?

Advantech-Innocore has been supplying the regulated gaming industry for around 15 years now,  our immediate plans are to continue to expand our range of products for different market segments as evidenced by the new products on show at this years G2E show.  Our technical team is unrivalled in its ability to tailor the latest PC technology to the needs of the gaming industry. 

We can add “intelligence” in so many ways to give our customers complete solutions either off the shelf or as part of their design team designing custom products to realize their dreams for next generation slot machines.