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Guitar Hero veterans form interactive fitness studio, Blue Goji
Charles and Kai Huang, founders of original Guitar Hero producer RedOctane, are venturing into another aspect of the physical gaming industry – exercise. Blue Goji is an "interactive fitness company" that aims to make cardio exercise a social experience with games and by tracking individual work-out goals on mobile devices. Blue Goji will attach to smartphones and tablets on treadmills, elliptical machines and stationary bicycles, specifically. The team is accepting developer applications. Charles Huang is also CEO and co-founder of Green Throttle, a peripheral company announced in November focused on bringing smartphone games to the big screen. Now that Chales Huang has "blue" and "green" covered, we're looking forward to his next venture, "Pink Elephant."
Report: RedOctane founders staying with Activision
Though music game pioneer RedOctane may have all but evaporated in the recent round of Activision layoffs, it seems that the driving force behind it, founders Kai and Charles Huang, will remain with the publisher, according to a report from Develop. Though they're not fleeing, we've been given no hints as to what the Huangs will be doing now at Activision. Ever the optimists, we breathlessly (and no doubt foolishly) await a console follow-up to In the Groove.
Red Octane 'evaluating' Project Natal, other motion devices
Guitar Hero peripheral maker Red Octane has been adding approximately 2.5 plastic instruments per year to each American household for nearly four years now. If you're using your computer from atop a stack of music game peripherals like we are, you'll be happy (or perhaps dismayed) to hear Red Octane prez Kai Huang told Digital Spy that his company is looking into Project Natal and "a lot of other different technologies that could enhance the Guitar Hero playing experience."Huang specifically picked out Natal to address the "many different things you can do with it," echoing statements made by MTV Games last month on the next iteration of the Rock Band franchise. He outlined some potential implementations in the "motion detecting; maybe sensing how you're playing, or the ability to use it for interactivity purposes and taking advantage of it for party purposes." Huang, however, remained cagey on specifics, restating his company is still "evaluating it." Though the tech's still in its relative infancy, as of right now it seems that next year's music-rhythm games are going to feel very different than this year's bunch. We've dropped a demonstration of how awesome you might look playing them after the break!
Confirmation and vague release window on Guitar Hero DS
At this point, we think it may be safe to assume that any and all awesome franchises will appear in some form on the DS ... and as long as they put some effort in, hey, we're not complaining. At last, Kai Huang, president and founder of RedOctane, confirmed to GameSpot that the company is looking at a DS Guitar Hero for release early next year. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to have said anything else about it, but if we're a year away, there may not be much to say. Of course, We're curious about the approach they're going to take with the portable Guitar Hero games; there's even a version set for mobile phones, and so we can only guess they're looking at several control options. We predicted an Elite Beat Agents-style scheme, and we're sticking to that for now.
