I have been thinking about this for some time. It would work very well with other kinds of toys, simpler ones, like e.g. Action man and Barbie. The only thing stopping me is that I am a technical person and not a business man.
I worked for Lego for 6 years ago on a very special and revolutionary project of moving the Lego way of play into the digital domain. In only 2 years we created a full object database of all the Lego blocks and tools to assemble them in the virtual world(s). We made a demo where Kirk interacted with the Lego men, by wearing a special motion tracking suit and digital glasses. All of this was shown on Danish television and at the time he proclaimed that this was the future of Lego, only to cancel the project only a few months later. All the people that worked on this project left, and it was top people from all over the world. I was the architect of the object APi (Corba) to the database.
Lego has since followed a path where it tries to sell its toys thru other brands, and not on the merits of Lego itself.
We all knew that at the time, and tried to make the management understand it, the big risk off this. Lego is such a strong concept that it has survived much longer that the other construction toys. As some has mentioned Lego as a physical concept belongs to the 70's and 80's.
We had so many ideas going, that would have been turned into very innovative toys today.
Imagine a blend of the physical and digital worlds. Plug a Lego cam module into your GBA and see a moving digital version of what you are building at the screen. Look at it from all angles and get other parameters like skill and strength...similar to e.g. Pokemon. Put your Bionical next to your friends and let them fight it on the GBA. Go back and alter your physical creation and have another go.
What if some blocks was like brains that could only be developed in the virtual world by using Lego genetics? Download your new skills and play again.
Some of the things the project left behind were the director line and the first digital content that is bundled with many off the Lego products.
The current problem for Lego is that the US sales have failed. It is common sense that it is computer games that is the problem, and it will only increase as the games and computer toys gets even better.
The message from Lego is to go back to the original bricks that had been so successful in the past...but that is such a funny thing to say since we live in the future.
Back in 1998 when the project was cancelled (also because of a bad year) we look at each other and say: Well the company is run by accountants. If the same people had run the company at the time the idea of the plastic brick was acquired and made usable, they would have turn it down, and gone back to improving its wooden toys!
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I have been thinking about this for some time. It would work very well with other kinds of toys, simpler ones, like e.g. Action man and Barbie. The only thing stopping me is that I am a technical person and not a business man.
Hi
I worked for Lego for 6 years ago on a very special and revolutionary project of moving the Lego way of play into the digital domain. In only 2 years we created a full object database of all the Lego blocks and tools to assemble them in the virtual world(s). We made a demo where Kirk interacted with the Lego men, by wearing a special motion tracking suit and digital glasses. All of this was shown on Danish television and at the time he proclaimed that this was the future of Lego, only to cancel the project only a few months later. All the people that worked on this project left, and it was top people from all over the world. I was the architect of the object APi (Corba) to the database.
Lego has since followed a path where it tries to sell its toys thru other brands, and not on the merits of Lego itself.
We all knew that at the time, and tried to make the management understand it, the big risk off this. Lego is such a strong concept that it has survived much longer that the other construction toys. As some has mentioned Lego as a physical concept belongs to the 70's and 80's.
We had so many ideas going, that would have been turned into very innovative toys today.
Imagine a blend of the physical and digital worlds. Plug a Lego cam module into your GBA and see a moving digital version of what you are building at the screen. Look at it from all angles and get other parameters like skill and strength...similar to e.g. Pokemon. Put your Bionical next to your friends and let them fight it on the GBA. Go back and alter your physical creation and have another go.
What if some blocks was like brains that could only be developed in the virtual world by using Lego genetics? Download your new skills and play again.
Some of the things the project left behind were the director line and the first digital content that is bundled with many off the Lego products.
The current problem for Lego is that the US sales have failed. It is common sense that it is computer games that is the problem, and it will only increase as the games and computer toys gets even better.
The message from Lego is to go back to the original bricks that had been so successful in the past...but that is such a funny thing to say since we live in the future.
Back in 1998 when the project was cancelled (also because of a bad year) we look at each other and say:
Well the company is run by accountants.
If the same people had run the company at the time the idea of the plastic brick was acquired and made usable, they would have turn it down, and gone back to improving its wooden toys!