Sega Installs 'Toylet' Games in Japan's Urinals

'The Northern Wind, the Sun, and Me' Game

By Duncan Geere, Wired UK

Sega has announced that it’s testing consoles called “Toylets” in urinals around Tokyo. The novel hardware asks the user to strategically vary the strength and location of his urine stream to play a series of games.

For now, Sega has installed Toylets in four Tokyo metro locations, including Akihabara, Soga and Ikebukuro. The location test will run through Jan. 31.

Each urinal is installed with a pressure sensor. An LCD screen is mounted on the wall above, letting the gamer select from and play four different minigames.

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'Mannekin Pis' Game

There’s “Mannekin Pis,” which simply measures how hard you can pee, and “Graffiti Eraser,” which lets you remove paint by pointing a hose in different directions.

There’s the faintly misogynistic “The Northern Wind, The Sun and Me,” where you play as the wind trying to blow a girl’s skirt up, and the harder you pee, the harder the wind blows.

Finally, the bizarre “Battle! Milk From Nose” is a multiplayer game where you compete against the person who last used the urinal. The strength of your urine streams are compared, and translated into milk spraying out of your nose. If your stream is stronger, your milk-stream knocks your opponent out of the ring. If you do particularly well on any of the games, you can download and save your information to a USB stick.

Of course, it’s not just about games. Between sessions, the Toylet will display ads, hoping that you’ll pay more attention to them than you might a traditional ad because it also serves up the games. With the USB stick functionality, it’s entirely possible that personalized adverts are in the works, too.

The idea may have come from a concept served up by Yanko Design back in 2006, where a designer named Marcel Neundorfer positioned pressure plates on urinals. While other one-offs have followed, Toylets seems to be the first time that the concept has been considered as part of a larger, commercial roll-out.

Original Article: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/01/sega-urinal-games/

'Graffiti Eraser' Game

'Battle! Milk from Nose' Game