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Playhut goes live with online efforts

By Staff -- Gifts and Dec, 1/9/2008 8:35:00 AM

HONG KONG—Toymaker Playhut Inc. this week officially launched an interactive toy and Internet gaming division, GoLive2, at the Hong Kong Toy & Games Fair.

The unit will extend Playhut’s interactive play focus to the online world through portals and websites, and new electronic toys and gadgets that connect and interact with them.

“I founded Playhut with the goal to bring a new way of play to the marketplace,” said Brian Zheng, CEO of Playhut. “With GoLive2 we are offering kids and their parents a very different and unique way of playing, based off the question, ‘How do you play?’ GoLive2 innovates play in a way that has not yet been introduced to the toy industry.”

The division’s debut products are the cryptically named “K” and “S.”

The GoLive2 K is centered around two massive multi-player online (MMO) virtual worlds for kids ages 6-13 years old: the boy-inspired, robot-themed Wowbotz and the girl-centric, Kuttiez. Launched in October 2007, the sites currently have more than 20,000 members. At this week’s Hong Kong show, K’s second component, a line of toys that complement the online worlds, was unveiled. The toy line includes eight individual characters—four Kuttiez and four Wowbotz—along with matching accessory packs. Each toy contains mini-games that unlock pass codes, enhancing online game play by adding new areas within each virtual world. The K toys will be available at retail this spring.

GoLive2’s other debut product, S, is an online video game platform, known as Sphere. Instead of purchasing a traditional video game console, players purchase a wireless controller – called Stix – that plugs into a computer and lets players access more than 50 online games. The games are designed for players age 6 to adult and are said to have comparable graphical quality and sophistication to many of the popular console games on the market today. S is scheduled for a spring 2008 launch in China and a fall 2008 launch in the U.S.

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