Sony and LEGO Collaborating on Interactive Toys

LEGO and Sony have revealed a collaboration to design and produce an experimental range of block toys that work with motors, cameras and PlayStation controllers. It's an attempt to increase LEGO appeal among tech and game-savvy kids, but could also spark development of new video game projects.

A number of prototypes were showcased at Sony's Computer Science lab earlier this month. Some LEGO pieces included cameras that sent video to smartphone and tablet devices. One experiment allowed a user to control a brick-built toy with motorised wheels attached, that could be driven with a PlayStation controller. Another involved actuators which could topple LEGO structures on demand.

"Lego is concerned about losing kids to video games," said Ganta Kondo from Sony's R&D department. "We want to keep the size small, but add interactive games." Of course, its use could spread to the PlayStation platform too, given Activision's success combining toys and video games with the Skylanders franchise.

At the moment though, there are no plans for producing consumer products on the back of these experiments.



Source: Data Group Report (via Network World)