I love Hasbro, I do, even though they don’t seem to love me (or anyone in the UK… more on that in a second). If you go through the list of my obsessions, you’ll see that one of the top ones is a franchise owned by the American toy giant, and that franchise is Transformers. However, Transformers is far from being their only well-known toy brand, and one of the brands they currently own (although it’s one they didn’t create) is Lazer Tag.
According to Engadget, Hasbro have now decided to update that brand, and naturally, in the modern day and age, they’ve chosen to tie it in closely with mobile phones. Or, more specifically, with iOS devices like the iPhone 4S. So, what’s this Lazer Tag 2012 all about, then?
Basically, it’s just like the Lazer Tag I remember, but with a crucial different. You still have plastic guns to shoot your friends with, and those plastic guns have a laser in ‘em. Only it’s not a very strong laser, naturally, ‘cos the last thing you want to be doing is impromptu ophthalmic surgery on your best mate, right? Basically, you shoot them, you score points, they shoot you, they score points. Simple.
Lazer Tag 2012 combines that concept with a dock, on the guns, for your iPhone, and it includes an augmented reality app, with online stuff built in, to really bring the art of laser tag games into the third millennium. So, that’s brilliant, and we should expect to see it on Android next, right?
I wouldn’t get my hopes up, if I were you…
Y’see, there’s a big difference between porting an iOS app across to Android, and porting a combo of app and accessory across. From Hasbro’s point of view, they know all the phones using it will be the same shape, so there’s no compatibility issues, but what would happen if they tried to make it work with the HTC Sensation XE, and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S, and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus?
Quite simply, if they tried to make it work with all of them, it likely wouldn’t work very well with any of them. And thus, expect it to only make an appearance on the iPhone. While you’re at it, expect it to either be in very short supply in the UK, or to not appear over here at all, just like all of the really cool Transformers figures that I really want.
Yeah, that’s what I was getting at in the opening sentence…
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