Taking on the now industry standard concept in the games field of augmented reality, adidas has created a virtual 3-D world that can be accessed using a future line of five men’s sneakers. Users need to visit the adidas site and hold up their sneaker to their webcam; the show will feature a code implanted in the tongue which will allow a virtual world which can be navigated, using the sneaker itself. adidas will continue the project and present three games (one based on music, one on star wars and one skating game) each developed by xForm. The shoes with the augmented reality codes will cost between $65 and $95 and will be available starting February. (http://hypebeast.com/2009/12/adidas-augmented-reality/)
Comment: Adidas is really mind-blowing with this new, innovative way of gaming. Like all new things, people are "pro" or "contra". People have commented on this video (on other websites) with messages like "I'm not playing with my stinking shoe!". But HEY!, that isn't the purpose of the product!
When I look at this product true the eyes of a marketer, I think this is a good promotional move from Adidas. People will be talking about this strange, new and innovative way of gaming-experience.
"This is the first online experience physically brought to live by the design of a set of sneakers"- is a quote from Addidas which will be the fundament of many following product (I think). Unlike the nunchucks (WII), Adidas has made the "adidas originals" as a game pack. I don't think that we'll see things like this soon for Xbox, WII or Playstation 3. But this shoe is a unique product that combines reality and game world. The sneaker are the key which unlock a new game world with different games, challenges, etc... .
From my point of view I don't think the content of the game is the most important thing here (it's a kind of surrogate of Grand Theft Auto), the most important thing, which creates a new step in technological innovation, is the shoe.
All I can say to this is "GO ADIDAS!".
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This video completely highlights how Adidas works and thinks , they show that they’re creative and that they’re always trying to find possible solutions to make “our” future and everyone’s future a more interesting future. They’re always very creative and give another dimension to every single shoe.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that they want to achieve is highlight which type of consumers they want to attract , they definitely wants to attract the young and creative minded people. They do that by using a lot of interesting colours and by creating a special way to play games.
And that’s why i like this video so much !