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Haier's heat-exchanging Power Pad promises to make long, hot showers a little more efficient
Major appliances are major energy drains, and if you have a traditional, tank-based hot water heater it can be a major factor in your monthly utilities bills. Haier's Power Pad promises to make those things have less of an impact on people's finances -- at least when it comes to showers. It's a heat exchanger that you stand on whilst washing that man right out of your hair, water running off your toned body and through the vanes in the Pad, warming the cold water that's pumped through it. That water is then deposited into the hot water tank, which now has a little less work to do. Haier is hoping to get this to market in China within the next two months for ¥4,000 (about $600) and, by that time, boost its efficiency to 30 percent. That's still 10 percent lower than the EcoDrain we spied last year, but we have a more practical concern: what happens when that thing gets clogged with hair and various bathing products? It doesn't look particularly easy to clean.
Friday Video: Power Pad hack is music to our ears
Seth Sternberger is responsible for the awesome video above, which brings back memories of Big, for some odd reason. It's just pure awesome. The specifics of how he completed this are a tad bit of a mystery, but Seth has some musical chops. Not only did he complete this, but he's also part of the chiptune outfit 8 Bit Weapon. We salute you Seth! Keep up the good work.[Via Engadget] Each week, our Friday Video segment takes a look at the gaming landscape online and brings forth an interesting video that (hopefully) gets the dialog started. Other cool hacks featured have included the GameCube clock and a Nunchuk-controlled camera.
Power Pad hacked into musical controller, DDR trembles
We're not quite sure how Seth Sternberger, one member of 8 Bit Weapon, was able to pull this off, but he somehow compiled a number of old parts from local shops and eBay in order to transform an NES Power Pad into an instrument of awesomeness. Click on through for a video of Micro Boogie being performed on said Pad, and don't be shocked to find yourself immediately overcome with the need to get one of these in your own house (only to remember that you can't dance).
Active Life: Indoor Mat Interview
MTV Multiplayer's interview with Active Life: Outdoor Challenge producer Yusuke Sasaki barely touches on Active Life: Outdoor Challenge at all, and instead focuses on the really attention-getting part of the package: the new Family Trainer mat!Apparently, compared to the NES mat, the technology has been refreshed a bit. No specifics were given, but perhaps the Family Trainer is something more than buttons inside soft plastic? Or perhaps the years of Dance Dance Revolution mat testing undergone around the world has helped hardware designers make more robust mat controllers. As far as tangible changes, "The Active Life mat actually has more buttons in a unique configuration that works well with different types of games as well as multiplayer gameplay on a single mat."Sasaki also reaffirmed Namco Bandai's intention to create more games that use the mat. Dance Aerobics seems ripe for remaking, if they want the Wii Fit crowd.
Buy an actual stadium instead
We're no strangers to collectable NES junk and completely bonkers auctions, but learning about this piece of Nintendo history makes us glance, ever-so-slightly, to our own boxes of dusty cartridges in the hopes that we might one day become millionaires after a forgotten NES relic turns out to be a gold mine.Stadium Events is apparently the single rarest "officially released" NES cartridge in history. Why? Well, it was first introduced to the USA by Bandai, and the game made use of the Power Pad (formerly known as Family Fun Fitness). Nintendo subsequently purchased the rights to the Power Pad, wanting a piece of the hot sporting action. After the purchase, Nintendo renamed the actual game itself to World Class Track Meet, and copies of Stadium Events were pulled from the shelves. Hence, they are now rarer than a lion's steak dinner.While the history of such a probably awful game is mind-numbingly complex, Stadium Events goes on existing as a rare collectible. And guess what? You can bid on it here, costing you only a couple ... thousand dollars. Not to worry, the seller is offering a discount on the $7.95 shipping cost if you buy multiple rare games from his collection. Thrifty buyers take note of this saving.For reference, a sealed copy of the game sold in 2006 for this much.
A pictorial history of Nintendo's peripherals
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo/Peripherals_that_paved_the_way_for_the_Wii_Fit_Balance_Board'; Nintendo has had its fare share of first-party peripherals. Does anyone remember – or still own, perchance – the Game Boy printer? The Nintendo 64 Pikachu microphone? Our friends and archivists at Nintendo Wii Fanboy have composed a pictorial history of Nintendo's tendency to avoid the standard controller. From the Power Pad to the Balance Board, click here to see it all.
Retrospective: Nintendo's past peripherals
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo/Peripherals_that_paved_the_way_for_the_Wii_Fit_Balance_Board'; With Wii Fit (and, thus, the Balance Board) hitting stores recently, we figured a nostalgic stroll down memory lane would be nice. So, what we've done is compiled a list of all the peripherals that helped pave the way for the Balance Board, Nintendo's latest peripheral. So, let's not waste any time and get down to business. To start your journey, just click on the red text in the bottom right-hand corner there.
'Family Trainer' is more Power Pad than Balance Board
Little known fact: Bandai's NES "Power Pad" was known as "Family Trainer" in Japan. And so old is new again, as Atari has announced the European release of Namco Bandai's thoughtfully named Family Trainer for September (it's called Active Life in the US and hasn't been dated). These days, names like Family Trainer and Active Life certainly conjure a connection to Wii Fit, a "knockoff" if you will, though the new Family Trainer is more a resurrection of that mat from the 80s than another way to get weighed on your Wii.This "new" Power Pad is bundled with zany feats, forgoing the track and field games that were packaged with the original peripheral for things like log jumping and mine karting in jungles and haunted mansions. Missing the mark? We think so. Price this pad at half the cost of Wii Fit, toss in a Pilates program, and Family Trainer will go platinum, like day one.[Via Engadget]
Virtually Overlooked: The Power Pad games
Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative.When the exciting (to us, and ironically so) news of a Wii version of the Family Trainer and Athletic World appeared, our thoughts turned toward the past. That's sort of our thing, you know? New games make us think about old games, old games make us think about old games-- sometimes snack foods make us think of old games.But we have plenty of reason to look back here: the new Family Trainer is a functional duplicate of the original Family Trainer/Power Pad, and Athletic World is a sequel of sorts to one of the few Power Pad games. We doubt it will work out this tidily, but it's possible that the new Family Trainer will be able to work as a Power Pad for NES games on the Virtual Console. So, let's look at the lineup and see if there's anything worth laying a mat out for! (Hint: kind of?)
The new Family Trainer is a faithful recreation
We know you're all on the edge of your seats waiting for more details about the Family Trainer and the new version of Athletic World. We understand-- we know how long you've been waiting for a sequel to this NES classic, and we know that everyone is desperately awaiting some kind of Wii exercise game.Famitsu sought to feed our frothing demand for Athletic World with a new, close-up picture of the Family Trainer, which reveals it to have exactly the same button layout as the Famicom/NES pad, with a picture in the corner indicating that it can be turned over for the other familiar Power Pad button layout.Except for the colors and the icon designs, this is exactly the same as the original Power Pad. It's even got the grid pattern on the back. There are also a few more photos of actors pretending to enjoy Athletic World, with tiny inset screenshots of the games. The official website is open, as well, but features nothing but the same photos at the moment.We admit that we're kind of leaning (get it) toward this game now instead of Wii Fit, both as an act of retrogamer defiance and because we'd be amused by a new version of Dance Aerobics.
Bandai Namco brings back the Power Pad and Athletic World
Before the Power Pad was the Power Pad, it was the Family Trainer, released in Japan by Bandai. They actually marketed it briefly in the U.S. as the Family Fun Fitness pad, but Nintendo bought the rights, rebranded it as the Power Pad and started packing the peripheral in with NES systems along with a retitled Stadium Events (now called World Class Track Meet).One of the few Power Pad/Family Trainer games was Athletic World: an Olympics-style collection of games including hurdles, rafting, and "Hop a Log." And now, in one of the worst-timed moves ever, Bandai Namco is releasing a new version of the Family Trainer along with a new version of Athletic World. Regardless of the quality of the single screenshot included, is this really the time to introduce a new exercise peripheral for the Wii? We're actually not going to leave that as a rhetorical question. No, it isn't. The Family Trainer has somewhat of a nostalgia factor, but even that's disrupted by the fact that Athletic World wasn't that great on the NES. And its main competition, Wii Fit, has the invincible Wii Sports factor.The best we can hope for is another super-limited release in the U.S., as a moneymaking opportunity. Click on the image to see a larger version (with plenty of family air-paddling!) and click the link for the Japanese press release.[Via NeoGAF]
Wii Warm Up: Warming up to Wii Fit
Wii Fit may seem shiny and new, but not only is it a concept that console-makers and game developers have tried before, but it's part of a philosophy Nintendo has long tried to pursue. Over at Water Cooler Games, Ian Bogost recently spent some time remembering the Joyboard, a peripheral for the Amiga -- which boasted a single retail game -- that is similar to the balance board that is set to release with Wii Fit. Of course, it's not the only example; many of us still have dance pads for Dance Dance Revolution lying around, and some of the old-schoolers may even have old NES Power Pads tucked away in a closet, collecting dust, while gamers fondly recall Dance Aerobics and Track & Field. What Bogost doesn't address -- which we think is a fascinating issue -- is Wii Fit's potential to succeed in the current market environment. Quite rightly, he calls upon gamers and critics to look back over the history of the industry in order to gain a better understanding of how we reached this point, and we agree with him that people should be less shocked by Wii Fit than they have seemed to be. Nintendo is no stranger to "non-games" and unusual peripherals. Particularly now, when the Wii has the potential to move even beyond the ubiquitous past presence of the NES and get into every home in America (and perhaps the world, huzzah!), it's no surprise that Nintendo is again angling to break the market wide open and offer something for everyone. Does Wii Fit surprise you? Obviously, we knew a health pack of some sort was coming, but this is rather expanded upon what we expected. We know some of you don't like the concept -- while others, like this blogger, think it's the bee's knees -- but does it surprise you? What other market-expanding ideas do you think we'll see from Nintendo?
Wii Warm Up: How long before someone cheats at exercise?
Not even one whole day of Power Pad ownership had passed before we were on the floor, drumming on the pad with our fists, flagrantly breaking the implicit rules of World Class Track Meet. Our other favorite move? Extending our long jump by simply stepping off of the pad. Yes, we are overweight now.There's a new Power Pad in town, although it has fewer buttons and a more solid-looking construction. And it's meant more as an exercise tool than a game controller, really. But we're gamers, and we can't help the way we are. Some of us are going to cheat. Do you think you have what it takes to play it straight, or will you take the hands-on approach to Balance Boarding?
