Image copyright The Paper Image caption Husbands can play old-school games such as Tekken 3 in the pods 
 
 A Chinese mall has introduced "husband storage" facilities for wives to leave their spouse while they shop, it's reported. 
 
 According to The Paper, the Global Harbour mall in Shanghai has erected a number of glass pods for wives to leave any disgruntled husbands that don't want to be dragged around the shops. 
 
 Inside each individual pod is a chair, monitor, computer and gamepad, and men can sit and play retro 1990s games. Currently, the service is free, but staff told the newspaper that in future months, users will be able to scan a QR code and pay a small sum for the service using their mobile phones. 
 
 A few men that tried out the pods told The Paper that they thought they were a novel idea. 
 
 Mr Yang said he thinks the pods are "Really great. I've just played Tekken 3 and felt like I was back at school!" 
 
 Another man, Mr Wu, agreed, but said that that he thought there were areas for improvement. "There's no ventilation or air conditioning, I sat playing for five minutes and was drenched in sweat." 
 
 Incentive to go shopping 
 
 The pods have been the source of much humour on Chinese social media, and have sparked debate about whether they could be rolled out even wider. 
 
 One user approves the decision, saying that the pods "give these men an incentive to go shopping, and to pick up the bill" for their wives shopping. 
 
 But others disagree. "If my husband just wants to go out and play games, what's the point of bringing him out?" 
 
 Reporting by Kerry Allen 
 
 Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter. ||||| A mall in Shanghai has made the baffling decision to introduce “husband storage” facilities—glass pods where women can drop off their husbands while they go shopping. 
 
 There are a number of questions raised by these pods—mainly, If men really hate shopping with their wives so much, why couldn’t they just go shopping at other stores?? I assume that the Global Harbor Mall, where these glass cylinders were installed and which contains 270,000 square meters of floor space, has plenty of other stores which are catered more toward men. There are even non-shopping alternatives, like admiring all the fresco decorations, or sitting on a bench by the food court and contemplating life. Why do men across the globe continue to complain about being “dragged” to the mall with their wives and waiting while she tries on 20 dresses when there is an easy solution to their boredom (and it's not dropping them off at daycare)? 
 
 On the bright side—for the husbands, at least—each individual pod at Global Harbor Mall contains a computer monitor and gamepad, so they can play retro video games to their hearts’ content. According to Chinese newspaper The Paper, the games are currently free, but in a few months customers will be required to scan a QR code using their phones and pay a small fee for each playthrough. Also, the pods currently don’t have ventilation or A/C, leading one man to be “drenched in sweat” after five minutes of gaming. 
 
 This isn't the first time that China has explored the concept of "husband storage" in malls; "husband cloakrooms" began springing up in 2010 and gained traction in 2014. They're essentially rest areas with seating, TV and even smoking sections. Not an entirely bad concept within a mall—everyone could use a break sometimes from the noise and chaos of capitalism—but why they're exclusively being advertised to bored men and not also to, I don't know, elderly people or women with toddlers, I'm not entirely sure. In the U.S., NPR reported on the phenomenon of "men at malls" in 2006 and found at least one store catered to men waiting for their partners, offering snacks and comfy chairs. 
 
 The Global Harbor pods have already become a meme on Weibo and other Chinese social media, with several users asking, “Why couldn’t the guys just stay at home and play video games?” Why indeed.
– For men who are willing to accompany their wives to the mall but not actually inclined to shop with them, a mall in Shanghai has devised a novel answer: "husband storage" pods replete with retro video games from the 1990s, reports the BBC. The Global Harbor mall currently offers time in the glass rooms for free, but staffers tell the Paper that soon users will have to scan a QR code with their cell phones and pay a nominal fee to enter the gaming zones. A similar idea played out in China in 2010, when "husband cloakrooms" began appearing in malls. They're a bit different, more like rest areas with seats, televisions, and smoking sections, reports Newsweek. For now, the husband storage pods are being well received by the men interviewed, with one calling them "really great" because he'd just played Tekken 3 and "felt like I was back at school!" Another agreed, but noted that without ventilation or air-conditioning, he was "drenched in sweat" just five minutes in. (In the US, nearly half of the gaming population is now female.)