Atari Puffer: The Wii Fit of 1982

Owen Good — Sun, 18 May 2008 14:00:00 MDT

Tucked into Boing Boing's look at the timeline of fitness gaming controls is something called the "Atari Puffer." It went unreleased because of the video game crash, but it sounds like, well, a blocky game representation of off-camera work in the porn industry. It actually was some kind of exercise bike you plugged into the 2600.

As an internal memo describes it:

"Concept: There is a whole generation of kids (and adults) out there who aren't into sports and/or don't get enough exercise. At the same time there is a huge fitness market. We have seen how kids can become addicted to our video games. We are going to hook up an exercise bike to a video game, where the bike is the controller. Hook up a bike to "Pole Position" and you have to pedal to make your car "go". Hook it up to "Dig-Dug" and shovel faster - or else! We can make fitness freaks out of the kids and game players out of the keep-fitters. We capitalize on the combination of the two powerful markets — video games and aerobic fitness."

Better than that, you could hook the bikes up to a generator, too, and have an army of child fitness freaks powering your city's electrical grid. That captializes on the combination of THREE powerful markets — video games, aerobic fitness and ~~child labor~~ public utilities!

The Puffer is actually one of the better ideas in this look at 18 products — because it wasn't released. Most of the others, up until Dance Dance Revolution, were disappointments and DDR wasn't even specifically released as an exercise game. Now we have Wii Fit, selling like nuts and offending parents of fat children everywhere. But it's early, and as Boing Boing notes, anything that promises to make exercise more fun usually doesn't. Because if it was fun to begin with, we wouldn't be sitting on our asses playing video games.

From Atari Joyboard to Wii Fit: 25 Years of Exergaming [boingboing]

Kids Won't Listen? Sic BOB on 'Em

Owen Good — Sun, 11 May 2008 10:00:00 MDT

Parents! Do you lack all authority to control your child's video game playing? Do you lack opposable thumbs, or an appendage suitable for TURNING OFF THE TELEVISION???? Well, fortunately for you, now there's BOB

Yes, BOB takes all the guesswork, temper tantrums, hurt feelings and, you know, parenting out of refereeing your child's time in front of the tube. Now when you tell little Johnny he has only five hours to kill hookers and drive drunk in Grand Theft Auto IV, BOB is there to show you fuckin' mean it!

As the product's website says, "BOB becomes the bad guy in screen time negotiations." That means you can get back to being the cool mom or dad! And kids! Make sure you save your progress every three minutes because YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN BOB'S GONNA LAY DOWN THA LAWWWWW. It's like Russian roulette with gamesaves!

Seriously, there was a kid in ~~Missouri~~ who destroyed a vacuum cleaner in order to play video games. I'm betting at least one BOB's power cord, locked or not, gets introduced to a pair of scissors. AND THEN WHO'S GONNA BE THE BAD GUY????

Can you believe the "Today" show touted this as "fun stuff for summer?" You mean something that deactivates the fun stuff I do in the summer? Honestly, I'm wondering if I can reverse engineer BOB to not shut off my TV. Because I have Netflix and Gamefly rentals piling up while I do stuff like THA LAUNDRY, and DINNER, and CLEANING MY TOILET.

BOB— The Screentime Controller [usebob.com, hat tip to Richard Blakeley for the video again]

By the way, whenever you see me type all caps, you should imagine a monster trucks voice — Owen

Kotaku: Torture devices

Atari Puffer: The Wii Fit of 1982

Kids Won't Listen? Sic BOB on 'Em