Toyota going harder on gaming than Apple was not on my 2026 bingo card. Oof.

Idk why they are calling it console grade when their focus is largely on in vehicle displays. It’s more like threejs than unreal.

They were going with Flutter to leverage its rich UI toolkit and for "building stunning interactive experiences."

Can't wait for Alex Jones future rant:

They're puttin' Flourite in the engines turnin' the friggin' cars gay!

Could have gone with a proven Godot ecosystem, then sponsored them to work on speeding up startup times and making it 'automotive grade.'

But, no...

Toyota Connected North America is Toyota Motor Corporation's subsidiary founded in collaboration with Microsoft for working on in-vehicle software, AI, and related tech initiatives.

Toyota is interested in a game engine suited for their in-vehicle / digital cockpit experience.

Interesting - surprised they didn't just want to contribute to Godot to make it work better for them, but its their resources I guess.

... but why would there be a need for games for in-car displays?

Toyota developing a console grade, open source game engine - using Horse Dung & Manure

I guess they chose this particular flavour of Horse Dung & Manure because it is Google-branded, thus likely has wide-spread support and a proven track record.

But hey, JavaScript has both of those, and no one argues that it isn't shit (well, almost no one...)

Any development time that is not spent on a new ICE vehicle is time well spent

Are they going to port the old Yaris Xbox Live Arcade game to this new engine?

you wouldn't soft mod a car

It’ll probably be really good. Toyota makes good products. They make good cars, like the Supra and the 86, and they make good appliances, like the Prius.

Edit: I think people assume I’m insulting the Prius when I call it an appliance. I am not. Appliances do the single thing they’re designed to do very well. A washing machine washes clothes. A refrigerator keeps food cold. A Prius gets you from point A to point B efficiently and without frills.

Why tho

Interesting. This might actually become a good option for mobile games and apps. I've created a few Flutter apps that integrate Unity for their 3d content, but that always comes with drawbacks, especially performance-wise. I'll definitely keep an eye on this.

This seems sort of interesting, although I really wonder how performant it'll actually be given that most Flutter apps on my phone are somewhat laggy.

How about console grade open source car systems

Doesn’t godot already solve a lot of this?

Thanks. Looks like Microsoft is getting their dirty hands in Toyota. Good to know now that I'm looking at trucks.