If you think a hot craps table with all the whooping and high fiving takes center stage on the casino floor, wait until you see how Light & Wonder is going to swing the excitement to the slot side with a groundbreaking hardware development, the LightWave cabinet.
Brett Colbert, Director of Product Management at Light & Wonder, took some time with CDC Gaming to discuss exactly how LightWave represents the next evolution in immersive slot cabinet design.
“When you gaze across today’s traditional gaming floor, you observe a lot of signage out there and a lot of visual competition for that space because of the attraction it holds,” Colbert said. “With banked signage, we think there is a need in the industry to have more interaction with the game”.
“When you are playing a game and you get into the bonus, there is a lot of great stuff that is going on. The goal with the LightWave cabinet is to take these experiences and stretch them outside of the limited machine LCD space and utilize a larger canvas of display.”
Colbert said the Light & Wonder team started developing this idea years ago while working on the Cosmic cabinet, which led to the launch of the jumbo Horizon cabinet in 2024.
LightWave cabinet is designed to transform the traditional slot player experience with a variety of technological developments that completely enhance the games, including synchronized LCD and micro-LED displays, without increasing the banks’ footprint.
“Synchronizing the gameplay with the LCD and MLED displays is precisely what we knew was needed,” Colbert said. “The hardware was there. It was a matter of working with our game developers and software engineers on precisely how to do it with our best brands to utilize and be bi-directional on the content.”
Illustrating his point, Colbert gave the example of the game triggering a bonus. LightWave is capable specifically of triggering an animation around the EGM and literally “wrap it around”, extending the animation and the excitement of the event. He also said that if the player triggers an impactful bonus, it can take over the entire bank.
Colbert observed that LightWave makes it possible to not only see someone in a bonus, but to feel like you are part of it for a little bit. Lightwave displays events beyond the screen, which creates awareness and excitement around the bank, truly creating a center of energy on floors.
LightWave debuted live at Light & Wonder’s Investors Day in New York earlier this year and was placed in the showroom in early August. Colbert said that operators will be invited to see it in the showroom as the team prepares for G2E 2025.
“Right before G2E, we are going to be installing a handful of banks on The Strip and throughout Las Vegas,” he said. “In New Jersey at a pre-G2E event, we invited operators to come in and experience the hardware. It was the first time operators in a large group saw it live.”
Colbert acknowledged that as far as the game content for a new product launch of this magnitude, Light & Wonder has a powerful inventory including strong, familiar brands that have incredible mechanics capable of using the LightWave signage to enhance the player experience.
“We are coming out of the gate with Frankenstein Returns,” he revealed. “Frankenstein was our launch title on the Cosmic cabinet a couple of years ago, and now we are ready for the next iteration. Frankenstein has a great lightbox mechanic with a really fun feature with the Frankenstein’s Monster’s head that works incredibly well with the sign. Before we had just one head up on the sign, and now each EGM has one!
When the topic of the powerful Light & Wonder games portfolio comes up, there is one brand that always surfaces: Jackpot Party.
“Jackpot Party is a really beloved brand for us,” Colbert said. “We are asked every year at G2E when we are going to bring it back. We always said it would return with something that collaborates perfectly with it, and being incorporated into the LightWave cabinet is going to blow them away. It is going to be right up there in our Tier One portfolio.
“We recently launched a mechanical stepper version of Jackpot Party that is really popular. However, placing it on LightWave is the true relaunch of the brand. Our game development team devoted a lot of time to making the game and rebuilding it from the ground up.”
Colbert also revealed that with the launch of Jackpot Party on LightWave, there will also be an updated version of Dancing Drums, a new version of Ultimate Fire Link, and a new version of Invaders, all of which are among Light & Wonder’s most successful brands.
Emphasizing that the software is a crucial component of the technology, the communication between the sign and the EGM is critical to relaying what media needs to be portrayed. He said that LightWave is designed to display events beyond the screen, creating awareness that evokes natural excitement.
“Adding to this, we have a new media controller that is designed to sync with the game,” he said. “For example, when the EGM on the far right, or the EGM on the very far left, goes into a bonus, we can do different animations around each EGM.
“As the bonus continues and increases, we can add more animations by alerting the sign to do increasingly more. If you have two games on the bank that are in the bonus, each EGM will have its own visualization on top. As opposed to having just a one-time event, you can have all the games interacting with it.”
You can experience LightWave for yourself at the Light & Wonder booth at G2E.
