For the last few years TSR has covered the event in our issues due to the growing link between the latest toy brand and license and the amusement scene. Now with the direct emulation of the trading card and children’s vending the markets are not just allied but fused. The UK toy market is worth £2.1 billion from recent studies and has proven a robust market in the face of attacks from the consumer gaming scene.

The link between amusement and toy corporations became the strongest following the merger madness of 2004/5, and suddenly what shapes the amusement sector now shaped by toy thinking in part. The main products and corporate brands on display covered in this report.

The leading Asian toy brand Bandai, and now the new owner or partner of Namco (depending on which marketing director you listen to), the company has many leading brands and strong market dominance in the toy sector. The toy of the year based on sales proved to be the Tamagotchi range for the company, a dominance they hope to maximize. This brand will now be supported by Version 3 of the Tamagotchi range with online support and infrared beaming technology with other Tamagotchi’s.

Other prominent brands on display at the show included the Captain Scarlet range that is now using ‘toy recognition’ technology that has products recognizing others and interacting (a chip in the action figures, recognized by the various vehicles). Other television and film brands include the latest James Bond film for 2007 (Casino Royale), and the appearance of the next in the pimp ride racing franchise The Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift. News revealed to the Stinger that these film licenses are in direct negotiation for amusement application.

Bandai has increased their investment in cross-product licensing and it was leaked that discussions are underway that the UK offices were considering a merging of roles. As reported in the Stinger ATEI coverage, a possible fragmentation of the various amusement and toy brand could create a super operation on the cards.

The online capability for toy brands was the big trend at Toy Fair 2006 - a number of products familiar to the playing audience were now looking at adding to the play experience with a direct online component. One such company was Bandai with the new Tamagotchi Version 3, and slot car manufacturer Hormby and their Scalextrics range who showed a new live online slot racing feature for their latest releases. Players able to hock up their tracks to their PC and register races online. The company looking to a tournament element to their product. Still in an early stage of development this a major link between conventional toys and connected gaming.

The big success of the Robosapian brand, seen across the market for the last two years, continued to dominate at Toy Fair. The Wow Wee company behind the range showed their latest all inclusive robot, the RS-Media, that now incorporated the ability to walk and talk, recognize objects and interact. The system has migrated to an older audience, and the next version of the system has a high 299 price tag but the ability to play MP3 and store video and special directional speakers becoming literally a ‘walking iPod’. The company has high hopes for the new version of the RS series looking at the system as a possible interactive billboard, able to answer questions - a true development of technology.

The appearance of Robosapian had decimated the development of robot pet concepts. The hope to charge vast amounts for limited capability was blown away by the flexibility and innovation of the Wow Wee system. Best illustrated that by the end of the Toy Fair, news reports were circling from Japan that Sony had abandoned development and sale of their own Aibo robot pet and a future humanoid project were abandoned - these thousand dollar retail items crippled in the face of the Hong Kong manufactured Robosapian range. The - ‘if you can’t beat them join them’ - perspective saw news of other toy manufacturers making robot or intelligent toy products.

Lego showed at the event a new force to their range. Having discarded their theme park holding, the company had ramped up their toy brand support. New to the range is the ExForcer, a manga-inspired battling robot range. But behind closed doors and for VIP’s viewing only, the company showed the updated Mindstorm range of Lego that incorporates special sensors and can be connected to the owners PC to create complicated intelligent machines. The system is aimed at four year olds and up, and it builds on the popularity of the previous range, and also embraces online capabilities.

Toy manufacturer Radica, had an extensive range of classic TV-plug in interactive game devices which have found popularity as a retro throw back to the good old days, offering games to a new younger audience before migrating to console or PC gaming. This product range was boosted by a brand new acquisition that was revealed in our ATEI coverage. In an exclusive agreement with the amusement manufacturer Incredible Technologies; for the second time IT has ventured into the consumer sector, hoping this time that the agreement would not cause similar repercussions.

Originally, Incredible Technologies attempted to place their Golf game into the consumer games sector through a relationship with a popular publisher and then directly through their own operation. This proved less than successful, competing against the poplar golf such as the Epic and Leaderboard series. A second attempt saw IT target the consumer player scene selling cabinets to home players - but due to initial connection problems and then fraud the effort was cancelled. At the Radica booth the latest attempt was revealed, a special TV Plug in box with a lap trackball controller, so that players can play a rudimentary version of the game at home. Called ‘Golden Tee Home Edition’, the toy manufacturer hopes that the popularity of the bar and club system can be translated into a successful home game.

The use of the home television seemed a feature of a number of toys, working on the assumption that most children had a TV in their room. Hasbro, popular for the Parker Bros., range of board games had developed a now series of games that replaced the trivia question cards of popular board games with a DVD with on screen animated questions and task; the games Monopoly, given the DVD treatment. In an unusual update the game Twister, was also updated in this fashion, though borrowing heavily from the Dance Dance Revolution popularity emulating the style and different moves (renamed Twister Dance).

Innovation seems to be the name of the game for the international toy scene with the appearance of Cube World, small inter-connectable LCD display cubes that contain an animated and autonomous stick figure that acts alone or if connected with other boxes, able to have multiple connections and never the same animated routine. Continuing the LCD screen gaming pieces, one company showed the ipet range as an alternative to Tamagotchi and hoping to find favor similar to recent pet games on portable game decks. The move towards the next generation of Tamagotchi style systems was evident with AniPalz - teachable pets with special features and Manga All Stars, a special LCD football (Soccer) skill management and training systems, that allows trained teams to compete via inferred with other systems, and then linked via a special pass code to online tournament placement - with live cartoon action.

Innovation in TV connected game systems came from Vtech, famous for their early learning systems, with a market share of 67 per cent, up 37 per cent on previous years; the company showed various heavily licensed game and educational content, on a series of increasingly more sophisticated children’s systems, such as the V-Flash. In a surprise the youngest targeted video entertainment systems aimed at the amazing 9 to 36 month old market the company showed the V-Smile system, linked with the Baby Einstein range of early learning month baby content - people wondered aloud that gaming is trying to catch them younger, how long before we will have ‘invitro’ game systems!

The popularity of collectable gaming cards in the pre-teen market was evident on the show floor, that this market would now be joined by the Kid Vending systems from the amusement sector was not lost on a number of the leading suppliers. One leading collectable gaming card range is from Konami, the toy division of the amusement giant not actually exhibiting at the show (the clash with ATEI straining resources), Konami product distributor Upper Deck Entertainment, showed their ‘Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game range. Now some five-years into its brand placement the phenomena aimed at 6 to 15 year olds is supported by a circulated monthly through VIZ Media manga that achieves a 180,000 circulation in Asia. The card range rivaling Pokemon - How long before Yu-Gi-Oh! finds its way into a kid vending game from the amusement wing is yet to be seen.

On display on a number of booths at the show was the next generation of trading cards revealed to the trade. The DEX system offers cards with virtual video technology - similar to the lenticular technology used in 3D systems; the player actually slotting these virtual cards into a special playing deck, where they accumulate points before head-to-head games. These new cards were on display in prototype with licenses from Power Rangers SPD and Sonic X, the SEGA mascot one of the first brands to receive this treatment, though it was unknown if the new card technology would be used in kid vending card game systems in amusement.

Breaking Stinger News - Launched exclusively at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January the future of board games, beyond the addition of DVD, Phillips Research showed the Phillips’ ‘Entertaible’. An innovative 30’ LCD screen allows the actual board graphics with the ability for animated sections. The player’s playing pieces Read by the screen table which acts as a touchscreen and incorporates infrared LED components. Though shown in prototype format, the system proposes to offer a major step forward in the way people play board games.

In Japan, SEGA have displayed the ‘Ami-Gyo’ (LindBergh) system that uses a similar large LCD screen in an innovative prize token system for the Asian market; though the interface is off screen, the vertically mounted screen acts as an animated playing field depicting the action and points towards the development of more LCD style display landscape screens similar to the TAB-Austria ‘Virtual Pinball’ system.

Breaking Stinger News - One of the unusual gift items that made the Christmas shelves proved the staying power of video amusement with a wide audience demographic. Sold from the popular Target stores in America the ‘Midway Home Use Arcade Machine’ (PC) offered a cut down arcade cabinet for $500. Developed by Big Electronic Games Limited the system incorporated a tinny 14” monitor, released December the 1st 2005. Slightly smaller than a conventional arcade cabinet (called full-scale by the retailer), with 2-player configuration, but no coin-box, the PC contains 12 games from the Midway range of Classic titles. Though receiving mixed reviews by buyers the system fed off the popularity of home owned classic arcade cabinets.

In a smaller package, but still building off of the classic game pedigree PVG Tech a division of Jazwares Inc., released their ‘Gameroom Classics’ (PC), representing a Taito Bartop Classic system with over ten games, and a Capcom Bartop Classic and SNK-Playmore Bartop Classic. The company has taken the format and created the Golden Classic Casino content. All these machines proving that the retro revolution is not abating in the consumer scene, though could this also marks an increase interest in out-of-home leisure entertainment products - a backlash against home console success?