Thanks for the info. If I get my health issue sorted out, I could possibly see myself getting back in to VP, via VPX. The new features do sound kind of exciting.
I would probably tend to agree about cabinet simulations being kind of pointless. In general, that is.
I myself have a 20" widescreen rotatable monitor that gives me most of the benefits of the cabinet experience. The one thing that would certainly complete it is some kind of flipper and nudging controller. I'm guessing there's a relatively inexpensive one out there if I ever feel like getting it. But, whatever.
Point is, I do think playing VP in portrait view is cooler than playing it in desktop mode, but it does have a big problem-- since it's still just a flat screen, it doesn't actually help to bring your eye down to table level to help play, like you would playing the real thing. Or if you're just looking at the table head-on, that's also an unnatural view, since you wouldn't be looking at a table from that POV either.
So at the end of the day, portrait mode is a cool experience, but it's also frustrating in that part of your brain is tricked in to thinking you're actually playing a real table, but another part of your brain keeps thinking "something's not right here, and no matter what I try to fix it, nothing works."
That said, I could definitely see the point in cabinet VP for a bar, or something like that. Or maybe for semi-rich people and up, with their own arcade rooms.
Heh... guess that's my mini-editorial for the day. :)
