It's Intel Inside -- your toys
From talking stuffed animals to virtual surfboards, Silicon Valley is infiltrating the playroom.
Intel Corp. announced the first products which are a direct result of its relationship with Mattel Inc. -- a computerized version of a microscope and a digital camera. These high-tech toys are just a few of the wired wonders that will be unveiled at the International Toy Fair in New York next week.
The initial products in the Intel (NYSE:INTC) and Mattel (NYSE:MAT) partnership involve merging some traditional toys with the PC in a move to "extend the PC in a fun way. It opens up the experience of the PC and the power of a PC to new audiences in new ways," an Intel spokesman said.
The Intel Play X3 Microscope lets kids display the items under the glass on a computer screen, and the Intel Me2Cam digital camera lets kids take video or still pictures and transfer the images into a cartoon on their PC.
Both will be available from Mattel this fall for around $99.
On the heels of Furby
"In the last few years, those sorts of interactive toys have really taken off with consumers," said Cliff Annicelli, associate editor of Playthings Magazine -- monthly covering the toy industry. "And what you see in the toy industry is once one company has a hit with a certain type of toy like a Furby, a lot of other companies try to [copy that]."
The Furby -- a furry "interactive pet" that speaks its own language -- was a major hit this past Christmas. But what makes toys like the Furby so attractive to companies is that it's not just kids who like to play with them.
"Kids are growing out of traditional toys faster. Boys used to play with action figures up until say 12 years old. Now, once they get to 8 or 9, they stop playing with traditional toys and are pretty much exclusively playing with video games or computer games or things like sports," Annicelli said. "By creating more high-tech toys like Lego Mindstorm [a "robotized" version of the traditional Lego blocks that can be programmed by the consumer] you can attract older kids and adults."
Interactive toys big business
Get a hit like a Furby and you're talking big business. Salomon Smith Barney estimates that Tiger Electronics, a division of Hasbro Inc. (NYSE:HAS) that produced the furry creature, will contribute between $350 million and $400 million in sales to its corporate parent in 1999.
And those Furbies aren't babbling to themselves in the toy chest. Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT) jumped into the toy market a few years ago with talking stuffed animals including one based on the popular PBS dinosaur Barney. The company plans to introduce another line of interactive plush figures at the Toy Fair based on the Teletubbies, a British import that has recently become a hit with the pre-school set.