Disney/Lenovo’s Star Wars: Jedi Challenge is going to be the hit of the Christmas season. You heard it here first.
Love Star Wars? Looking forward to the movie? You have to have this. Interested in AR and VR? You have to have this. Like games? You have to have this. This plastic-y $200 product into which you jam your smartphone is going to define augmented reality head-mounted displays for the consumer. It is both a harbinger of things to come and a box of good clean fun with a brand everyone loves.
In fact, stop reading this. Go to Disney’s exclusive partner, Best Buy, and give yourself a gift. If you’re reading this column, you deserve it. I didn’t wait for Christmas. I opened mine when it arrived at 6 a.m. on Tuesday (this story was under embargo until 12 a.m. ET Friday). I mean, why wait for the future? The special Fed Ex guy drove it right to my door. The future is in a rush, and it looks like a toy.
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Within 15 minutes I had downloaded the app and snapped my iPhone 8 into the sleeve mount and slid into the top of the plastic headset.
The system works exactly like you think it would. A stereoscopic image on your phone is bounced onto transparent plastic lenses to create the illusion of ghostlike “holograms” in the real world. Even with the phone in it, the headset is extraordinarily light and comfortable. It sits lightly on my face. I can wear my glasses underneath it and there’s plenty of room, and lots of air circulating, so there are no heat or sweat issues from extended use. The set up was close to plug-and-play.
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Eighteen months ago, Goslin’s group at Disney consumer products was brainstorming on how to use Augmented Reality to create the ultimate lightsaber. As the team riffed on the idea, Jedi Challenge was born.
Goslin’s technology and creative team designed the game and did the animation, working with the gurus at Disney subsidiary Lucasfilm to ensure Jedi Challenge was integrated into the Star Wars mythology. “Our goal was to create a compelling illusion, with high fidelity, high frame rate, and authentic realism,” said Goslin.
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Source: Forbes