The Sony W705 ‘Zeemote Edition’ launch!

Last night, the Really Mobile team was invited along to The Sports Cafe on London’s Haymarket to celebrate the Sony’s launch of the Zeemote JS1 Bluetooth Gaming Device

Last night, the Really Mobile team was invited along to The Sports Cafe on London’s Haymarket to celebrate the Sony’s launch of the Zeemote JS1 Bluetooth Gaming Device (which means it’s a fancy joystick, in case you were wondering).
The accessory, we’re told, will come bundled with the Sony W705 and available exclusively on T-Mobile with 18mth contracts starting as little as £25pcm.
Each purchase comes with Fast & Furious out of the box, as well as an additional two free downloads available from the Zeemote area of the TMO’s Web n Walk portal.

Gaming is a sport, geddit?
Gaming is a Sport, geddit?

So far so press release.
Let’s get to the good stuff.
🙂

First of all – these guys mean business. A three way announcement (JS1, TMO & Sony), the representatives on hand were quite confident in their ability to deliver a truly enjoyable gaming experience.

Personally?
I had my doubts.

A short chat with the Sony chaps (most of whom were sporting the rather swish 8MP C905) revealed that their 2009 was about to get very interesting indeed (more on this later), and that this new partnership with JS1 was just the first of many announcements over the coming weeks.
JS1 themselves were equally pleased with their road ahead; with Sony’s backing of the UK launch and a promise of future SE handsets to come with TV-Out as standard (as per most high-end Nseries devices), things are certainly looking up indeed. It was noted that the emerging markets were key to JS1’s success moving forward, citing recent stats about workers in India saving months upon months of hard earned cash to buy the latest portable device, but never – ever owning a home gaming system, a’la Wii or Xbox 360.

Makes sense to me.

When pressed on the competition, namely – Nokia’s N-Gage, my new found friend was keen to tell me that the controller was compatible with Symbian S60 devices too. With a quick visit to their website you can download and install the Zeekey software which makes the Js1 controller magically work with your N95, or – in my this rep’s case – the N85, which he uses at home as a media player (bluetooth controller as standard – natch).

Then came the fun part.

Actually not a bad little phone...
Actually not a bad little phone...

Each device comes with the game ‘Fast & Furious‘ out of the box and, to tie in with the evening’s festivities, there was a competition for the attendees to take part in.
A racing competition in fact. Could you, with the slowest car available, finish the first track in the fastest time?

The prizes were as follows:

  • First Prize: A bottle of champagne and £250 towards a day out at top UK race track, Silverstone. (Err.. Wow!)
  • Second Prize: A bottle of champagne.
  • Third Prize: A teeny tiny bottle of champagne (that probably has shower gel in it).

As soon I walked into the venue, the above was explained to me at a breakneck pace and I knew instantly that I would have to take part.
The Really Mobile reputation was at stake!

First time go: 1:58.00.

A couple of the demo guys, one of which I immediately recognised from a former life, commented that – for a newbie – it wasn’t a bad score.
Nice. I was happy to hear that.
What with being a gaming geek long before I was a mobile geek; I can haz skillz.

Then I checked the leader board, the current 1st place was a guy with a staggering 1:44.58. Amazing. I immediately sought him out, only to discover that he’d been there since they’d started and was continually playing over again until he got it just right. The guy was a machine.
I would not be beaten. Again I tried, this time coming in at 1.56.32.
I showed the others, thinking I might just settle for third place.

No. I would not be beaten.

I swear I must’ve sat in the corner (on my own actually), playing and replaying and replaying until I got it right. See what with the game being Fast & Furious, the other racers are actually out to GET YOU. So you’d get mere seconds away from the finish line and POW, someone would ram you off the road.
I could’ve thrown the damn thing out the window at one point… but still I persevered. This time I hit 1.54.47. Getting better.
Now I had a crowd, “Have you beaten it yet?” – “You need to submit a time soon James”

LEAVE ME ALONE! I NEED TO DO THIS!

I even secretly tried attempting to play the game without the controller, thinking that actually – the buttons on the handset would be more responsive than that of the JS1, but no – I actually scored worse.
The controller, it seemed – works.

One more try…

Race, corner, turn, nitro… and…. Pow! 1.45.80.
A very, very well-respected 2nd place. High fives all round and yours truly walked away* with a bottle of champers.

Aces.

So, what has this got to do with the launch?

Well, as I said earlier – I am a gamer. I’ve been a console-fan ever since I first picked up Super Mario Bros on my mate’s Nintendo Entertainment System all those many moons ago but mobile gaming has never really done it for me. My friend Ricky Cadden, of Symbian Guru fame, has oft-argued with me about the awesomeness of N-Gage combined with his TV-Out, to which I laugh. A lot. And let’s not even start on the N-Gage woes I have at the moment, (I’ll save that for a future Really Mobile feature).
Needless to say, my phone will never take the place of my Nintendo. However, remarkably, with the addition of the JS1 Bluetooth controller, I was v-e-r-y slowly (and almost quite unwittingly) won over.

I’ll come out and say that I went in extremely sceptical. Thinking it’ll be another failed attempt to ‘maximise gaming possibilities’ in this ‘new mobile world’, but no. I was wrong. The smart chaps at TMO/JS1/Sony were happy enough to let me just sit and play, the experience itself wove its own magic.

We’ve got a review copy here at the Really Mobile offices, of both the Sony W7905 and the JS1 controller, which I’ll be sending out to the team for a 2nd opinion… as soon as I can beat that last time… 1.45.80

*I say ‘walked away’ – they’re sending it to me in the post. Boo.

“What Wii did on Sunday…”

First official ‘proper’ post of the new blog site, AHOY!

How to make a Minority Report-esque interface using your Nintendo Wii!
(by yours truly and geekyouup aka Richie Hyndman of Mippin fame)

🙂

Now, this all happened thanks to the awesome social media world of the internet, how?

Well the thing is, I (along with a few others) like to organise Mario Kart Wii competitions over Twitter.
So far so Nintendo Geek…

But ‘Wadds‘ – aka Stephen Waddington, Managing Director of Rainer PR – spotted this regular occurrence and decided to share that he’d given up playing games on his Wii and how he now is all about creating something like this.

“Wow, cool!”

I took that link, threw it at Richie and he came straight back to me and said:

“Come over Sunday, let’s do it!”

ROCK. ON.

So – Big love to Johnny Chung Lee for showing us the way – and also bonus props to Stephen for giving us some blog love first thing this morning!

Nice work all round,
Cheers.

🙂

8 Random Things About Me – Blogtag!

My dear friend Helen – aka Technokitten – has just taken my Blogtag cherry… I say ‘just’…

Helen actually gave me a shout back in July, but I’ve been so sodding busy I just haven’t round to doing it…

However! As I’m off on my hols this week and I’m desperately trying to do anything BUT pack – I thought I might actually give this a go…

But first – here are the rules:

  • We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
  • Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
  • People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

So – without further a do – here we go!

  1. I am a Hugger. A Free Hugger in fact. I own two ‘Free Hugs’ T-shirts, a ‘Free Hugs’ hat and I even have a few ‘Free Hugs’ badges that I give out on occasion. I bought my first shirt on a whim earlier this year and now wear it quite regularly – in fact – I even set up the facebook group – ‘Huggers Unite‘ – where I organise the odd ‘Free Hugs’ event around the streets of London… Why not join the group and come to the next one? I believe a hug can make you feel so much better. The first event we ever did in Covent Garden was only supposed to go on for an hour – but we were there the whole afternoon – one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done.
  2. I’m a geek. No really. Not in the mobile sense like you’re all thinking right now. But in the “I-own-comic-books-and-I-collect-the-figures-and-sometimes-I-don’t-even-take-them-out-of-their-boxes” kind of way. There. I said it. Ahem.
  3. I once fasted for seven days. That’s right. SEVEN DAYS. Not a single morsel passed my lips for a week. Detoxing in Thailand at the Spa they have on Koh Samui. Changed my entire life. Everyone should do this at least once… It sorted my head out, put my career on track and as and an added bonus – I lost about two stone in weight!
  4. I used to be an accountant. Say. No. More.
  5. I studied at Drama School, (see above).
  6. I’m a gamer. I love Nintendo through and through and have owned pretty much every system they’ve produced at some point or another in their patchy history… I bought a Wii on day of release and people are STILL struggling to get their hands on them… This fact I like a lot. :o)
  7. I can dance like a Cossack. Like.. properly. Strange old family tradition. We can all do it. Are we Russian at all? No. But if you’re REALLY special and if I like you an AWFUL lot – then I may consider wheeling it out for you at your next party… for example – the wedding I went to at the weekend… my thighs are killing me now… aargh! Yeah – so don’t ever let me get involved in a dance off – (it’s been known to happen before).
  8. I’m a married man. Got hitched in June 2005 and it was all over by March 2006. The best part of it all? I wouldn’t change a single thing. Without it, I would not be person I am today… and anyone who knows me knows that I am one happy fella!

So who do I tag?

Well – I think eight random things about the following people would make a good read:

  1. My good friend (and new blogger) Will,
  2. Fellow Nintendo fan Neil,
  3. My Jaiku/Vox Nokian buddy Carol,
  4. New friend Melissa,
  5. Taptu demon Vero,
  6. Founder of Refresh Mobile – Scott Beaumont – link as soon as I have it (I know you’ve got a blog somewhere Scott), EDIT – Thanks Scott
  7. Good buddy and ex colleague of mine – Prash
  8. Aaaaaaaaand… last and by every means least – Mobile9 King: Abul. ;o)

By the way – the photo on this post? It’s a pic of eight random things that are closest to my desk!
A prize for the person that can name all eight…

EDIT – Scott came back with his link – it can be found here: http://scottbeau.blogspot.com and also – as for the picture prize competition – name as many as you can…

Prize goes to the person that gets the most right…