We are currently flooded in France with advertisement for the Poke Walker that is shipped with Nintendo’s Pokemon HeartGold and SilverSoul games. These are the latest sequels of game of the Pokemon family for Nintendo DS.

The Poke Walker is a small pedometer that can download a pokemon from a Nintendo DS. In other words, you carry your pokemon with you. You may say: “Nothing new, just take your DS with you.”. But the difference is that the more you walk with your poke walker, the more points your pokemon will gain. And of course, the poke walkers can communicate gaining some new points.

This is simply brilliant, for at least three reasons:

• Against piracy; the poke walker is only delivered with the legit games. No way to purchase a poke walker without buying the actual game cartridge. When you know the pervasiveness of R4 (and likes), this is an extremely good answer.
• It obliges your kids to walk, run, move… Good answer to people who complain that video games turn our kids in sedentary zombies
• You have to communicate with other poker walkers; once more, a good answer to detractors against no life players
• Business wise; a good illustration of the network effect.

This is an excellent answer to piracy. Unfortunately, it works only on this game.

I know that the news is somewhat out-of-date. It was launched in the US last summer. But my kids are not pokemon players  :Happy: