XRtainment Zone Updates

Jan. 14, 2006: After our website's server went down last week due to a high-level virus attack, we are back online! Here's what been happening since the new year.

On Jan. 5, I spent the day in Las Vegas to meet with some of our vendors and see the new products at the Consumer Electronic Show. Xavix, one of our vendors, had a big booth there and they had their new games out to try. This is a ninja game and the bar is quite heavy, giving your arms and shoulders a workout.

This was a game specifically designed for seniors, though when I played it, it was quite difficult! If the seniors can do this, it'll really stimulate their hand-eye coordination.

This was a fun way to do the stepper. This has a bunch of games to keep your mind occupied from stepping. I especially liked the archery game they had for this.

This is treadmill that hooks up to a PC so you can play first-person perspective type of games. You walk to make your character move forward. You can see the handlebar with all the buttons where you can control the game. Right now, it's being used mainly for "first-person shooter" type of games, but I'm investigating less gory and violent first person games to see if it would work with this treadmill. This is due out sometime this year.

This is a cool biometric scanner and the first kind I've seen where you don't have ot touch the pad itself. (We're looking at biometric entry for the "high-tech" factor and also so that kids (and adults) won't have bar code cards to lose!)

What's cool about this one is that it takes a heat map of the veins in your hand. While security isn't our main concern, we like the fact that you don't have to touch the pad, just rest your hands in the cradle to make sure it's the right distance away from the sensor. After calibrating it with my left hand as seen in the picture, I then tried to open with my right hand, bu tit didn't work!

Powergrid is coming out with a home version of their commercial-grade Kilowatt. This is called the "Exerstation" and as you can see, you sit down in order to play on this hardware. I tried it at a Level 3 and it was pretty tiring! This is an isometric workout, one of the few strength training pieces of equipment we'll have in our facility.

Here's a prototype of a robot sparring partner! Very interesting, very costly since it's the first of it's kind, and supposedly, it simulates a real fight better than a punching bag does. It's quite expensive (around $13,000) so we won't be putting this in, but I thought it was interesting.

While I did focus on exertainment-type of equipment, I did run across the more traditional type of video game playing. This particular one was the most sedentary of all the things I saw, I just had to take a picture of it! LOL! This is definitely NOT something you'll find in XRtainment Zone!

Here is XRtZ's own GM, Dr. Kim Knowlton, posing with one of our Dr. Smoothie products. These are the healthiest ready-to-make mixes for making shakes and drinks. No trans fat or refined sugar, easy to make, and a long shelf life! Very delicious! You'll have to try one when you come into the place.

Corey (in blue t-shirt) and Kim are blending up our first batch of Dr. Smoothie. Mmmmmmmmm!!!

Here are a few shots from the inside of our building, so you can see what's taken place so far. The general contractor has already demolished all exisiting walls inside, and is now ready to start building stuff in it's place.