Ambient Gaming
Electronics maker Philips is taking the gaming experience one step beyond HD and making a stab at turning your living room into a gaming interface. Their new amBX technology is supposed to provide a “full ‘sensory surround experience’ and enabled games will provide gamers with the ability to use light, colour, sound, heat and even airflow in the real world during gameplay.”
Yes, because what our society needs is more sensory stimulation. Key to note is the phrase ‘enabled games’, meaning that it’s likely that only a handful of titles will be early adopters to the system and the concept is likely to grow and advance rapidly if initial tests are sufficiently impressive. It sounds as though Philips is going the way of really bad IMAX effects unfortunately. Here’s how they describe their new toy:
Imagine the room of the future, where all electronic devices are amBX-enabled. The treacherous road to Saigon will turn your room jungle green, swimming with dolphins will splash it deep blue, ‘Halo’ jumps will turn your fans on full, lightning storms will strobe your white lighting, and attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion will blast on your heaters.
Now I’m for total immersion as much as the next geek, but seriously, do you have any idea what this would do to my hair?! Truthfully though, the lighting idea - so long as you’re not epileptic and will convulse unpleasantly during games with rapid light switching - sounds pretty cool. It would definitely add to the experience and the feeling of being more than just a monkey pushing buttons. The wind and the heaters? No frickin’ way. It basically means that you’d either have to destroy any inkling of interior design in your room by cluttering it up with space heaters and fans, or, and this is probably more likely, shell out a ton of cash to get “amBX enabled” electronics from, you guessed it, Philips. I wouldn’t be surprised if Philips was having a go at creating and sustaining a little supply and demand niche with next-gen gamers. Either way though I don’t want to be uncomfortable when I game, and a stiff breeze and tropical heat probably aren’t things I feel like experiencing during my rare moments of relaxation. Think too of the people you live with. Before you were taking up the couch and the television, and pumping out a bit of noise. Now you’re controlling the whole living room, from the lights, to the temperature….everything! No one, who is not directly involved in the game, will want to, or be able to, be in the room with you.
Let’s just say I’m not very taken with the idea, though I find it very interesting. If it seems like something that you’d like, you’ll have the opportunity to try it very soon. amBX will be available in May of 2006.
(source)
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the play girlz gaming blog: because guys aren’t the only players » Entertaible? Entertaining!
Jan 24, 2006 at 1:38 pm
[...] Apparently Philips is under the impression that MMOG’s don’t exist and want to focus on the good old honest social interaction that used to occur across the family dining room table. Board games. Yes, electronic giant Philips is going into board games. Mind you it wouldn’t be from Philips if it didn’t involve fancy technology and cool cool things. Their new venture, the “Entertaible”, contains the following nifty bits according to Eurogamer.net: [...]
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