Toylet games and digital adverts: Sega Entertainment runs amuck

Besides robots and vending machines, the Japanese are enamored with the art of the high-tech toilette. It’s one thing to offer pleasant and innocuous bursts of perfume and posterior shower jets, but Sega Entertainment has gone completely over the edge of protocol with its installation of urine-controlled games, like Pee and Play in urinals throughout Tokyo.

During a test period, which is slated to end this month, four types of Toylet Games have been installed at four bathrooms in pubs and game arcades. Their purpose may not be dark and sinister, but they are far more than they seem, for Sega has morphed into Big Brother; keeping his all-seeing eye on toilet users via digital adverts.

Each urinal is fitted with a pressure sensor, and a small digital display strategically placed at eye level. Digital adverts are shown after the games. The scary part is that not only are you watching unsolicited adverts, they are also WATCHING YOU.

Urine-directed diversions include: Graffiti Eraser, which allows the user to erase virtual graffiti on the display by aiming at the pressure sensor. Mannekin Pis, measures the volume of the user’s stream and derives its moniker from the famous Brussels fountain in which a boy urinates artistically and eternally.

The North Wind and The Sun and Me is another game in which a digital wind blows up a virtual girl’s skirt in direct proportion to the strength of a urine stream. If you are a user who enjoys invisible foes, Splashing Battle may have its appeal. This multi-player game pits users against previous users in terms of stream strength.

Japanese high tech toilets may have their secret appeal, but visitors to Japan are often astonished by the complexity of their operation.

All ingenuity and innovation aside, shouldn’t some things be as basic as originally intended?

(Link)

By MDeeDubroff on 04-02-2011