I’ve seen home-customized NXT bricks before on EBay (ones with clear and black shells, as well as ones with slots for processor circuit expansions). Not sure if they’re actual production things (some were being sold by universities/FIRST-like robotics teams, so they could’ve been prototypes/proof-of-concept units), but at least the black case ones looked like some sort of official product. I also remember seeing videos where people were using 3rd-party actuators/sensors/motors/drive units to build some impressive Mindstorms stuff. Most of these parts were full-on official-looking units with technic connections and plastic shells, but some were crazy stuff like multi-axis ball-bearing-style wheels made of metal and rubber attached to a professional-looking Mindstorms adaptor. Really cool.
Edit: so apparently the black NXT brick was a limited edition release in 2008. Strange that that has very few mentions outside Wikipedia itself.
Just had the opportunity to play around with the Smart Bricks in-person. Overall, my opinion remains unchanged that they’re not good for playsets aimed at kids, but I do think they offer a very tantalizing opportunity for modding.
The bricks have an accelerometer of some sort, so they can detect when they’re shaken or “swooshed” on a spaceship.
They also interact with those touchpoint tiles in an interesting way - the brick doesn’t have any pre-programmed reactions, instead it is told directly by the touchpoint what it’s supposed to do. That means it doesn’t need software updates, and potentially, if you can figure out how to reverse-engineer the touchpoints, you can get it to play your own stuff.
Last notable feature is that they have a color sensor on board that can detect a few different colors and match the onboard lights to that color.
If someone can figure out a way to get backdoor access to the smart bricks, it’s a serious piece of hardware that could legitimately be very useful… thing is, as I suspected, they clamped down the brick and it doesn’t look like they want you opening it up.
Some stores are already removing the sets from shelves and replacing them with info cards so that if you want to buy one of them you’d have to go to the service desk
That’s funny, I haven’t even seen them anywhere to begin with. I’ve been frequenting a lot of different stores lately (anything from big department store chains to small local toy shops) and none of them had any Smart Play sets available. I’m not specifically searching for them though, I’m looking for the new small Kai mech which is also nowhere to be found for some reason.
Smart Play sets have begun to show up in the last few months, and a lot of them have already been marked down in price. I feel like that’s pretty telling…
Anyways, I think the new smart Pokemon sets coming out in summer are a much better approach to the concept than Star Wars. The whole Smart Play thing is still kinda unneccessary to begin with, but I can see it working with Pokemon making battle sounds and whatnot, similar to the interactive Mario sets. Their voices would also be easier to imitate since they don’t really talk, so the gibberish smart brick noises will be less cursed than with Star Wars characters.
So it’s been a little bit, and this is a major update to the topic - hopefully this double-post doesn’t break the rules given the subject matter and its immediate announcement.
Now as someone with absolutely no skin in the game when it comes to Pokemon, these seem like awful sets across the board. They’ll all sell reasonably well I assume (except the Spooky Showdown - the price on that is insane), but the smart features seem even more contrived than they ever were with Star Wars. The greatest issue here is that, since they’re all Pokemon and all guaranteed to have a market, more themes will get the Smart Play treatment as the smart brick will be deemed a success due to Pokemon’s attachment.
Personally, I think they’re not too bad. The style definitely works for some ‘mons better than others, like Charmander is just atrocious, but overall I think most of them would look alright on display.
However, I agree that the smart play features are kinda silly for this. We didn’t need them. At the very least, the sets don’t include the Smart Bricks so the price can be a bit lower.
Aside from the pricing, which is definitely atrocious, not all of these are bad. The Mewtwo designs are pretty good in terms of shaping (some of the others are pretty egregious in terms of having very obvious smart sensor/output brick placement giving them the Roblox avatar look). Still, this is definitely a cash grab at best. Of course they’d pair it with Pokémon, that and Nintendo stuff in general are the way to go to get people to blow $80 on $45 of materials.
I think Mewtwo is really well done. The problem is that the set is abysmal. A really nice Mewtwo design in a set where he just stands there with the main gimmick being the set falls apart, for $70.
Also the only Pokemon game I’ve played is Detective Pikachu so I’m half expecting the smart brick to talk 'bout some “your dad is still alive”
The LEGO one isn’t very good either
And (allegedly) the loss of the Spongebob license too.
With how many themes LEGO is making that actively defy their own rules of what can and can’t be made, how long before Mega Bloks loses the Halo license to them?
I think Master Chief’s entry into Fortnite predates that license policy.
Theoretically, any character introduced after December 7th, 2023 would have a minifig representation in LEGO’s iteration of the game. I haven’t kept up with anything Fortnite-related so I have no clue who may exist in digital LEGO-form.
