What the...? apparently SEGA is making toys controlled by thought with the help of some company called NeuroSky. From Wired: NeuroSky is usually seen on the conference circuit as as a headset, clamped onto the player's beady-sweated pate, from where it monitors the electrical impulses within. Though it's quite limited — your Tetsuo-like mental concentration is measured as but a single axis — it provides a strange feeling of having a kind of "extra limb." Details on the Sega's new toys are not offered, unfortunately, so the end results are left to our imaginations. And the official release: Mindful Play – SEGA TOYS and NEUROSKY team to create “mind-controlled†tech toys. San Jose, CA (December 10, 2007) – NeuroSky, Inc., the leading innovator in cost-effective and “wearable†bio-sensor and signal processing systems, and SEGA TOYS Co., Ltd., a unique toy maker and part of the SEGA SAMMY GROUP of Tokyo, a global entertainment organization, are announcing a strategic partnership for developing innovative, next generation consumer entertainment products. Their goal is to join forces to take ‘play’ to the next level by pioneering toys which allow players to use brainwaves and other bio-signals to control them. Since early 2007, NeuroSky has been steadily building a relationship with SEGA TOYS. By leveraging NeuroSky’s bio-sensor technologies and development tools, SEGA TOYS has been developing a wide range of exciting, next generation consumer toys. "SEGA TOYS is taking play to the next level, and we at NeuroSky are proud to be a part of this break-through in next generation entertainment", said NeuroSky CEO Stanley Yang. “With our ThinkGear™ bio-sensor technology and innovative capacity of SEGA TOYS, our collaboration with SEGA TOYS will empower consumers to intimately interact with or control a toy, using their mind.†Over the last several years, SEGA TOYS has been actively pursuing strategic business alliances with partners both inside and outside the toy industry. Kenji Yokozeki, Managing Director of SEGA TOYS Co. Ltd., is quoted as saying: “We are enthusiastic about the potential we see in developing a unique franchised product line featuring NeuroSky’s technology. At SEGA TOYS, our priority is to provide customers with value based on new types of play, and NeuroSky provides us with the core technology to meet this challenge.†Source
as a peripheral, complementary to game controllers, it would be useful in the same manner that Bio-Tetris for n64 used the human beat-rate to determine game-speed.
Theres a HL2 mod running with this thing: Its seems like its to early to use it games, since it only has an axis based on actual mental focus (hence the Tetsuo joke up there). Unless they made an Akira game where everything blows up if your mental activity goes up, I dont see any modern game running with this kind of tech, not in this early state of development...
Well, Sega made the Wiimote first (well, conceptually, though the design went on to be Sega's fishing controller), so... it wouldn't surprise me at all if Nintendo's next "oh so innovative" console is that.
now now, the N64 had a similar accessory for one game. Using bio-metrics in games has been known for quite some time, but they are hard and expensive to implement in most scenarios.
Is not the same anyway... What I can say is that the whole concept of the wiimote (using a two-piece controller with one side to move and the other to point) was created by the gyropod.
