LONDON-Mobile-entertainment company Player X and Vodafone Group plc announced plans to release a cell-phone companion called Space Boy in August.
The character “lives” inside customers’ mobile phones. Space Boy is the first in the “Mobies” series of interactive mobile-phone friends reminiscent of the tamagotchi fad. Mobies interact with and entertain mobile-phone users by doing things like dancing when the phone rings, acting tired when the battery runs low or receiving a letter when new messages arrive. Mobies also can learn the phone owner’s routine and imitate tasks such as brushing teeth, eating breakfast or taking a shower.
Mobies also help phone users track their social well-being by rewarding users when calls and messages are received with extra props and toys. If users get too few calls and messages, they can compete in mini games on their handsets to ensure their Mobies’ health and happiness ratings stay high, said the company.
“We believe Mobies are going to be enormously popular with mobile-phone owners as they bridge the gap between the interactivity and fun of mobile games and the personalization of ringtones and wallpaper,” said Tony Pearce, chief executive officer of Player X. “The mobile phone is a very personal device and anything that allows users to customize their phone is incredibly popular with consumers. Space Boy and Mobies are going to take this ability to an entirely new level and create something that actually gives the user’s phone a personality.”
