This Guy Playing IRL Super Mario in Central Park Is One of the Coolest & Most Fun Demos of What MR Can Do

There's a general belief that augmented and mixed reality is going tied to enterprise solutions for the foreseeable future, and most developers in the field are focused on business use-cases. Without a dramatic breakthrough in the next couple of years that will likely be the case, making that decision the sensible one.

But, since when has sensible been exciting? Never. Sensible is boring. While enterprise solutions may tide us over for some time, we ALL know the holy grail of AR development is to find ways to reach the consumers. That is the only way this technology becomes the disruptor many think it can be.

A new video appeared yesterday by prolific coder/designer/maker of things, Abhishek Singh showing off his latest creation. With Central Park in New York City as his backdrop and a HoloLens on his head, Singh plays through his recreation of the famous and unforgettable first level of the original Super Mario Bros.

So, the original Super Mario Bros was a 2D side-scrolling platformer. Singh's take has converted it to a fully 3-dimensional immersive jaunt, complete with goomba stomping, fireball shooting, and the classic soundtrack. It looks like a ton of fun.

The vision of the augmented reality future in my imagination would allow the people walking by to tune into his holo-channel and not only watch but cheer him on or jeer at him or possibly interact with him in some way— controlling the enemies maybe?

Imagine Twitch.tv, a channel of people interacting with someone while that person plays a video game or similar activity, but instead, a large portion of the viewers are actually there in the same physical space as the entertainer acts out a shared illusion. Hmm, that sounds strangely akin to a modern take on theater. Oh, wait, that is starting to sound like social interaction. I must go stare at my phone now and be sensible.

Where do you fall? Enterprise or consumer? Fun or Sensible? Let us know in the comments.