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Probably my favorite thing about the Lego Smart Play system unveiled this week at CES is that it was designed for kids, first and foremost. In the past 10 years or so, Lego has increasingly courted an older audience with more expensive and elaborate sets. But when it was time to bring more advanced technology to Lego, the idea right from the beginning was more social and interactive play. If you havent heard about Smart Play yet, its a way for Lego to make its sets more interactive. A Smart Brick filled with sensors makes it so sets can respond to each other, know when theyre moving, play sounds and know when the corresponding Smart Minifigures are near them. Tiny Smart Tags, meanwhile, help the Smart Brick know the context of how its being used whether its in a helicopter, car or duck for example. Tom Donaldson, senior VP and Head of Creative Play Lab at the LEGO Group, told Engadget that the company worked on Smart Play for about eight years before introducing it this week, and that social play was the starting point. We started really looking at consumer needs, and this idea that kids really like social play, said Donaldson Kids really like the sort of things that change when they come back to them, and the kids really like agency. They want to be able to change things. Lego's Tom Donaldson demoing Smart Play at CES.LEGOBut a big part of the creation process was making the Smart Brick as flexible and powerful as possible and then seeing what scenarios could take advantage of it. We wanted to build a really powerful platform, he said. What we shouldn't do is say, this is what we think we're gonna need. We needed to say, let's create something that has a lot of capabilities that we can then figure out how to use.One of the conflicts with the tech-packed Smart Play system, though, might be the cost. Obviously, Lego has been successful at most ventures it has undertaken in recent years, but the pricing of Smart Play sets could make adoption a bit challenging. The biggest Smart Play set, Star Wars Throne Room Duel & A-Wing, for example, has almost 1,000 pieces and costs $160. Thats quite a bit more than comparably sized sets. The dual factors of the Star Wars license and Smart Play tech certainly impacted the cost. Lego Smart Play Star Wars setLEGOThe set includes two Smart Bricks, five Smart Tags and three Smart Minifigures, the most smart gear included in any of the initial three Star Wars Smart Play sets. Will parents shell out for the more advanced capabilities that Smart Play offers, or will they stick with standard sets? For now, Lego is betting the extremely broad appeal of Star Wars will help these new Smart Play sets find an audience. About three years ago, Lego got its team focused on the Star Wars franchise involved, as well as Lucasfilm, to figure out how to roll Smart Play out to the world. Very early on, we all decided that starting with the original trilogy would be great, said Derek Stothard, Disneys Director of Global Licensing These are such well-known scenes and characters, and they cross generations, so parents can introduce them to their kids. All that works really well together. Unsurprisingly, Lego is being coy about where things go beyond the initial three Star Wars sets, but its clear that after eight years of development, theyll want to bring it to as many product lines as possible. We're announcing a platform that you can see has tremendous growth [potential], Donaldson said. We made the analogy with the minifigure as something that youll see across the entire [Lego] system, maybe not in every single SKU but itll reappear in many different places. But ultimately we're a company that really focuses on giving kids what they want, what they love, and we'll have to see how it lives in a market.That last point about how it lives in the market is a good one, particularly given the pricing. We probably wont know for sure until Lego moves beyond the safe confines of Star Wars and really shows us what Smart Play can do across more varied scenarios. And going to non-licensed sets might be where Smart Play really takes off its easy to imagine a cheaper Smart Play add-on kit that can bring sets to life at a lower cost. But the idea of transforming anything kids create into something more interactive has a ton of potential if Lego can broaden its appeal beyond Star Wars fans. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/lego-is-trying-to-make-tech-invisible-with-smart-play-130000979.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Another first-party Xbox game is making the leap to PlayStation 5. This time around, Obsidians Avowed one of our favorite games of last year is crossing the great divide. The fantasy action RPG will hit Sonys console on February 17, one day shy of the games first anniversary. As it happens, an anniversary update is set to go live on all platforms at the same time. This includes a new game+ mode (allowing those who have beaten the RPG to replay it with all their gear and upgrades from their previous run), a photo mode, a new weapon type and more. Avowed is set in the same universe as Obsidians Pillars of Eternity games. It tasks you with investigating a fungal plague that has infested the world. The writing is stellar throughout, though the sidequests that reveal your companions backstories are particularly poignant," Engadget senior reporter Jessica Conditt wrote. "Avowed is gorgeous, its combat systems are fully customizable, its characters are intriguing and its encumbrance limit is generous. Theres a real sense of magic about the entire game and no, thats not just the mind-altering mushrooms talking."Microsoft has brought a string of first-party Xbox games to PS5 over the last couple of years, freeing them from console exclusivity. Forza Horizon 5, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II and Sea of Thieves are among the games that have crossed over to PlayStation. Later this year, youll even be able to play a Halo game on PS5, something that was utterly unthinkable not too long ago. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/xbox-is-bringing-avowed-to-ps5-120000035.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Midway through singing at Taipei Dome late December, Jolin Tsai mounted a 30-meter mechanical serpent that carried her through the venue while she performed "Medusa" a spectacle that left 40,000 attendees stunned and went viral online.The pop star's "PLEASURE" world tour, which cost around USD 280 million to produce, opened with a three-story-tall ceremonial bull procession before Tsai appeared unexpectedly on an elevated platform wearing a dual-faced mask expressing both pleasure and pain. The massive snake, which she rode as she circled the entire dome, was just one element of what ETtoday reports was the most expensive concert production in the Taipei Dome's history. The show's five narrative chapters also featured nearly 30 large-scale art installations and 20 hybrid fantasy creatures.TREND BITEAs generative AI makes digital spectacle infinitely reproducible, physical experiences are moving into the realm of the impossible to fake. Tsai's serpent too massive, too mechanical, too viscerally present to be dismissed as a deepfake exemplifies how live entertainment is weaponizing scale and IRL overwhelm against the flattening effect of screens.The strategy extends beyond concert stages: Louis Vuitton's ship-shaped Seoul flagship and Gentle Monster's theatrical retail spaces demonstrate that when algorithms can conjure anything, brands compete by building what AI cannot: three-dimensional absurdity that demands physical presence to fully comprehend. The question facing industries from hospitality to automotive isn't whether to embrace maximalism, but whether they can engineer moments so deliberately excessive that "you had to be there" becomes the ultimate social currency.
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Marketing and Advertising
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