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SEGA Brings Gaming To Public Restroom Toilets 138

Posted by samzenpus from the hold-my-joystick dept.
kkleiner writes "SEGA recently announced that they are testing their Toylets male urinal video game at select locations around Tokyo. Toylets uses a pressure sensor located on the back of the urinal to measure the strength and location of your urine stream. A small LCD screen above the urinal allows you to play several simple video games including a simulator for erasing graffiti and a variation on a sumo wrestling match. At the end of a game, the screen displays advertisements. Whether you find the concept hilarious, disturbing, or disgusting, urinal video games are simply another way that interactive media could invade every part of our lives. It also shows that no space is safe from digital ads."

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SEGA Brings Gaming To Public Restroom Toilets More

SEGA Brings Gaming To Public Restroom Toilets

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  • ...is the Zuck urinal puck. Nobody would ever miss again.

    • Of course, nobody wants to move that puck with their stick...

      And how soon before the pressure sensor is replaced with a video camera because it will be both cheaper and more accurate...

      • And how soon before the pressure sensor is replaced with a video camera because it will be both cheaper and more accurate...

        And I notice you forgot to wash your hands.

        • And how soon before the pressure sensor is replaced with a video camera because it will be both cheaper and more accurate...

          And I notice you forgot to wash your hands.

          Lets just say while I have nothing to be ashamed of... I would prefer something not pointing a video camera at my junk while I am taking a piss.

    • One game is called ninja pissing (actually I just made that name up), I aim my piss to minimize sound. You gotta bounce it off the rim just above the waterline. If you're uber-l33t at it you'll even stay quiet when starting and finishing. Plus it makes you seem super-classy to the other guys in the bathroom B-)

      Another game you can play is called "out the douchebag" (actually that's another name I just made up). When some douchebag uses his phone in the bathroom, you aim right for the middle of the bowl and

  • Pissing Contest (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 06, 2011 @04:08AM (#34774388)

    Now this is one pissing contest you just have to win :)

  • All I want to know is... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Does it support multiplayer?

    • ...and would a bank of urinals be a LAN? Now boys are going to start going to the restroom together... we couldn't do that before today (imagine a scene where one girl at a restaurant says to her girlfriend: "I'm going to the restroom, are you joining me?". Now switch them with two guys).

      • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Thanks for spelling that out for me at the end. I mean, wow, up until that parenthesized explanation, I had no idea what you were talking about! Your clear and concise explanation at the end was a real eye opener. (Imagine a scene where one person is talking about sticky social scenes that hint at mild sexist and/or homophobic topics, but turns it on its head and notes that it's okay now due to some "potential new social context". Now explicitly spell out some of the underlying social norms/faux pas imp

      • Re:All I want to know is... (Score:5, Funny)

        by Linker3000 ( 626634 ) on Thursday January 06, 2011 @08:44AM (#34775420) Journal
        So you'd be playing on a pee-to-pee network

      • Soon you'll have guys trying to get to just the right level of bladder fullness for the greatest pressure. Not so full that it would hurt to exert pressure, and not so low that you can't put any pressure behind it. Then you go for MAXIMUM DAMAGE!

        And then the damn cheaters would bring super-soakers into the bathroom |:-(

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Daz3d ( 669004 )
        In college our IT tutor used to joke that LAN means penis in another language, and he always enjoyed asking visitors to "come upstairs and see my LAN".

  • GOD DOMMOT SOGUH (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Japan, for the nth time, you are so weird.

  • Hmmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by cappp ( 1822388 ) on Thursday January 06, 2011 @04:12AM (#34774404)
    So wait...now I'm supposed to play with myself in public bathrooms? Sheesh it'd hard to keep up with the rules...

    • > So wait...now I'm supposed to play with myself in public bathrooms?
      Welcome to the wonderful world of Italian slang
      http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sega [wiktionary.org]

    • Best urinals i have ever used are at the regatta club on the Brisbane river in Australia. The urinal is a big one way window looking over the beer garden. Its awesome when your full of beer taking a long piss and can stand and comment on the "view"

  • Pissing match.... (Score:3)

    by rts008 ( 812749 ) on Thursday January 06, 2011 @04:13AM (#34774410) Journal

    "Hey! You sunk my Battleship®!"

    Put this tech on 'potty trainers' for kids, and housebreak those rascals in no time!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I remember seeing something like this in the U.K. 10 years ago.
      Target in the urinal, LCD at eye level.
      The longer you hit the target, the more the girl on the LCD would strip.

      Definitely load up on a few pints before "shaking hands with the unemployed" :-)

    • Well there is prior art for restroom battleship, see the first Harold and Kumar movie.

    • "Hey! You sunk my Battleship®!"

      Put this tech on 'potty trainers' for kids, and housebreak those rascals in no time!

      There is already a product designed by an Australian mother to help potty train boys; it's a heat-sensitive liquid crystal target which you hang in the bowl.

      When the warm stream hits the right spot there's a color change that reveals a happy face, or similar.

  • Adds new meaning... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bill Dog ( 726542 ) on Thursday January 06, 2011 @04:14AM (#34774422) Journal

    ...to the term "Wii"!

  • so when are they going to one for the women's loos? you don't have to be male to pee and hit targets you know! OK writing your name in the sand is easier for males but they said this was about pressure not multitouch
  • Apparently joystick based games are becoming popular again.

  • Have a pressure sensitive screen lining the surface of the urinal pot and then you gotta aim your pee at enemies that appear on the screen. No one is going to cheat by touching it directly for sure.

  • Something very important: (Score:5, Funny)

    by mawe ( 1247174 ) on Thursday January 06, 2011 @04:36AM (#34774484) Homepage

    Don't cross the streams!

    • Or maybe guys will become l33t at it and start showboating by swapping "controllers" mid-game, like those DDR freaks do.

  • We had these in our University Union toilets in Newcastle back in 2002 - not seen them anywhere else since though.

    • I think someone in grad school at MIT developed a urinal game device called You'reIn Control. I don't remember much about it.

  • The only way to win... (Score:4, Funny)

    by soccerisgod ( 585710 ) on Thursday January 06, 2011 @04:42AM (#34774508)
    ... is not to play at all!

  • Just what you were waiting for... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rolman ( 120909 ) on Thursday January 06, 2011 @04:43AM (#34774512)

    Great! The world's first socially acceptable way to admit playing with your penis in a public place.

  • Too bad Wii is already trademarked.

  • faces (Score:2)

    by r00t ( 33219 )

    Got an election coming up? Put the politicians side-by-side and let people piss on them!

  • Potty Pot Shots (Score:5, Funny)

    by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Thursday January 06, 2011 @05:15AM (#34774592)

    Back in the 70's, I bought this at Spencer Gifts for a friend. It had small cardboard ships to toss into the toilet, and you could try to sink by pissing on them. If your bladder is full of beer, and your blood full of alcohol, it is a hoot and a half.

    This "game" is much more challenging for women.

    For the non-US folks, Spencer Gifts is a chain of stores in malls (shopping centers) in the US. They sell crap, like stuff to throw into the toilet and piss on.

  • In other news: (Score:5, Funny)

    by pinkushun ( 1467193 ) * on Thursday January 06, 2011 @05:26AM (#34774614) Journal
    "Man dismembered by electrocution in freak urinal accident"
    • Let's just hope these things are made by some other company than one known for colored screens of death.

  • I have prior art on this as I've been playing with my Wii in public restrooms for years.

  • I'm sure... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bmo ( 77928 ) on Thursday January 06, 2011 @05:37AM (#34774644)

    This will help keep people from peeing on the floor. Goddamn, it's as if people haven't made it past potty training very far.

    "The lights went out in the bathroom and I missed EVERYTHING" - firesign theatre "Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra"

    --
    BMO

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Seumas ( 6865 )

      I stopped at a Burger King in Portland, once, which had a pretty messy bathroom. By "messy", I mean that the toilet was full of shit. And by full, I don't mean "oh no, someone used this and didn't flush". I mean, it was literally full of shit. Up to the rim and then beyond. The shit piled high into a sort of "pyramid" about six inches above the rim. And there was more shit on the floor. I'm grateful that I needed to use the restroom before eating, so I stopped in before we ordered. Just as I entered, an emp

      • You should have just ordered the EXTRA BIGASS FRIES.

      • A guy once told me about some outdoor thing he was at (can't remember what it was) where there was a porta-potty.

        He went in and there was a mountain of shit above the seat like you describe (or even taller, he did use the word "mountain"). And at the peak, somebody had planted a little American flag XD

    • Re:I'm sure... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by krou ( 1027572 ) on Thursday January 06, 2011 @06:24AM (#34774780)

      Reminds me of that story about the fly in the urinal [wbur.org] to change human behaviour and get men to aim.

      However, in this case, it makes me wonder if that would work: if you have to erase graffiti, for example, that would suggest you have to change aim a bit.

      Pretty interesting concept though. As my one friend remarked to me, it won't be long before they're doing this in the toilets, and people get to play Angry Turds.

    • Either that, or spit... or dump cups of water from the sink... or something else stupid.

      Then again, this is Japan we're talking about.

  • Microsoft, playing their usual catch up, have announced one based on their new phone os (its got terrific XBox integration). I was wondering what its answer to blue screens and red rings would be.

  • The most disturbing consequence of this is that the urinals will be cleaner because people will try to piss inside the urinal now. I'm not joking. In a mall in my town someone remembered to make urinals with images of spiders and other bugs inside the urinals and the effect was notorious because people would then concentrate on pissing on the images inside the bowl!

  • I've been wondering for the longest time (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday January 06, 2011 @06:55AM (#34774884)

    When will we get urinal ads.

    I mean, you have an audience that has nothing sensible to look at instead (when you're sitting, you can at least read but at an urinal?), nothing good to do and they also can't really escape you, while at the same time they're there for the average length of a commercial.

    Why didn't anyone get that idea before?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Such adverts are common-place at motorway service stations here in the UK.

      They're printed, and I imagine that this existing low-tech solution will be just as effective as the new high-tech version.

    • I live in a metropolitan city on the east coast of the US and we have had these for a long time in places like bars. They use an enclosed/framed cork-board-type of setup that advertisers pay to have their ads posted on. It's mostly ads for car care centers or some shitty local bar and grill.
      • There is a pub (I live in the UK) near where I used to live that had similar above-urinal-boards, but they had pages of newspaper in there. I think it was old (like a few years) articles about something, probabaly related to the pub (as a show-off thing more than anything), or about the history of the pub (really old, could be interesting to some). They did also advertise their drink deals though.
      • At my local shops in Western Australia there are ads playing in the electric hand dryer in the public urinal.
        Another cafe I went to had ads that played at the urinal that were triggered by them being used.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Fearan ( 600696 )

      In Montreal there have been ads around (and in some cases inside) urinals for a good amount of time. There are some bars that have LCDs over the urinal with a stream of non-stop ads.

    • They exist already. I know of at least one pub that had LCD screens above the urinals.
    • Been common in Germany for while in autobahn gas stops.
      Most are just cardboard in frame ads but one near Munich was an screen with audio and music when you were in front of it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jockeys ( 753885 )
      I've actually seen ads posted on urinal walls before many times. Usually print ads, sometimes at truck stops.

    • Lots of places in SF have ads above the urinal.

      I see these as a beautiful opportunity... for theft. You're not putting a camera in the bathroom. These things are going to walk away with regularity.

      • Well, they can be sealed behind glass, but I was more thinking of bars and other places where someone trying to dismantle an ad screen would probably be noticed.

  • Now Thats What I call "Taking the Piss"
  • Think of your colleagues hygiene habits. Would you use a touch screen in the bogs? It brings a whole new meaning to "that game was really crappy".
  • Why can't they make a game to encourage people to WASH THEIR FUCKING HANDS after they use the toilet. (Or, do Japanese people never wash their hands?)

  • Obligatory!

  • With repeated usage, some men could be trained to aim into the receptacle instead of splashing all around it. :) Talk about incentive!

    In the future, The first time you use one of these loos, you will be prompted to enter your name and other random information. DNA material that is urinated will then be used to identify repeat users, this would help to maintain local and global high-score lists.

  • Its Disgusting but Hilarious... When a person starts reading this article, surely he ll blast by laugh (http://stuffbin.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-choose-bathroom-suite.html)

  • Oh yes... nothing passes... the time... quite like... angry birds.

  • Sports bars with TV's in restroom is fine this is going to far.

  • I think it sounds corny and silly enough to actually be amusing.

  • A lot of shooting arcade games require you to point the gun off-screen in order to reload. Yeah, there might be a puddle on the floor next to the high scorers.

    • Or the type that has motion capture and changes the game accordingly. Those you have to squat or duck down to reload, while the guy next to you would be weaving around. You could shoot your eye out like that.

  • I just hope they don't make any shitty games.

  • This scares me. I am already thoroughly disturbed by gender-specific advertisements on cable TV, and here they'll have a 100% male audience. What will they try to sell me? Aftershave? Condoms? Or even worse, will it loudly proclaim "ENZYTE: NATURAL MALE ENHANCEMENT! GET SOME!" What if my "performance" in the game is available to advertisers? I can never use public restrooms again!

    Which reminds me of a Red vs. Blue that went something like: "I never use public restrooms." "What? We've been out here for years

  • have fun parked on the toilet

  • Typical male pissing contest.

    Now what about the girls?

  • Still not as cool as urinating on Berlin Wall (Score:3)

    by leftie ( 667677 ) on Thursday January 06, 2011 @02:37PM (#34781252)

    A Vegas casino had huge sections of the old Berlin Wall installed in it's men's bathrooms behind a glass shield.

    Pissing on the Berlin Wall is an uplifting experience everyone should get to do.

  • Can you play those carnival games where you compete with other players/pissers by hitting a target with your "water gun" which causes your horse to move down the racetrack or to blow up a balloon

  • At least this sounds more fun than just trying for the cigarette butts and gum in the bottom of the urinal.

    I realize that if you live in the US and are young, you may not even know about this, but in my youth it was hard to find a urinal that didn't have one or both of those things floating in it. When I lived in Japan, it was pretty common, too. Don't even get me started on the hideousness of the Japanese-style toilets in Shinjuku Station :p

  • can't wait for the new breed of gaming addicts from this one! Damn and Korea thinks it's had more than a fair share problems in the past with PC gaming addictions this one is gonna cause a real shitstorm. Seriously though how long before they up the competitive "streak" or work out how to keep track of scores. I'm all for it myself.

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