Nine year old wins scholarship for edu-game idea

22 Comments by Kyle Orland Oct 26th 2006 12:20PM
Filed under: Culture, Peripherals

In a marketing stunt to attract attention to their new educational game system, VTech has named nine-year-old Jonathan Fisher their first Chief V.Flash Officer, a position that carries a $10,000 scholarship as compensation. Fisher won the competition for the position with an idea for a game called Mission Possible, which utilizes players' skills in foreign language, geography, social studies and math.

The $100 V.Flash, which launched kind of quietly in September, is the latest in a line of educational systems from V-Tech and the first to sport disc-based games and 3D graphics. It's not going to challenge the big three for console supremacy or anything, but it might make a nice alternative for thrifty parents who want to satisfy their little kids console cravings on the cheap.

Tags: Edu-gaming, Educational, V.Flash, Vtech

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(Page 1) Reader Comments

Andrew Stanton: Oct 26th 2006; 12:28PM

Now that is one smart ass little 9 year old :)

-purbeast
http://www.gamersfeeds.com

AirIntake: Oct 26th 2006; 12:30PM

Tha PSWii360 are teh suxxorz! V-Flash pwns all FTW!

Lenny: Oct 26th 2006; 12:40PM

I swear there was a game like that when I was in school called "Where in the World is Carmen Sandeigo?"

JBGUY2K: Oct 26th 2006; 12:40PM

I feel sorry for those kids already...

MMurdock: Oct 26th 2006; 12:40PM

Good for him. In 9-10 years when he actually goes to college that 10k will buy him one book, maybe two.

emmzee: Oct 26th 2006; 12:44PM

Kid: YAY! You finally got me a video game system!!! ... what the ... V-Flash? ... $&*%&@$*^#!!!

OtakuCODE: Oct 26th 2006; 12:53PM

Wow, that must have been the biggest let-down to the kid to have won.

"I won! I won! Ten thousand dollars! I'm going to go to the store and buy everything I want! YAY!"
"Jonathan, honey, it's a $10,000 scholarship... that means you don't get any money. But in 11 years, when you get your student loans to go to college, you'll be able to borrow $10,000 less!"
"Mom... that's bullshit."
"You're right son... you're right... but you still did good, really."
"I'm going to my room to take a leak on my V-Tech."
"I understand, son, do what you have to do."

JodyAnthony: Oct 26th 2006; 1:08PM

and people say nintendo is kiddie!

OR

are you sure you don't mean the Nintendo V-Flash? amirite?

crono141: Oct 26th 2006; 1:09PM

Lenny, My thoughts exactly.

Snap: Oct 26th 2006; 1:56PM

My 3 year old has a V-Smile that we bought from him last Xmas. He loves it. The great thing about it is it has taught him not only number and letter recognition (it's main goal) but it's helped him progress to playing with Daddy. He can now control his characters on screen and is able to follow me around the level in co-op games without help.

My son and I regularly play X360 Lego Star Wars 1 & 2 and we're now just starting to play MUA, he loves being Spiderman.

When I was his age we played very simple games on Intellivision, but today’s next gen consoles are a lot more complicated. Introducing him to the V-Smile first helped his hand-eye coordination without frustrating him. Now that he has gotten the basic concepts down he's able to move up and play on the real consoles.

Agent MOO: Oct 26th 2006; 2:45PM

(special ed) YAAAAAAAAAY!

Amos: Oct 26th 2006; 2:48PM

Wow, that was...completely unoriginal. And here I thought some kid oen cause I actually had some really cool idea. Marketing stunt indeed.

Amos: Oct 26th 2006; 2:50PM

" Wow, that was...completely unoriginal. And here I thought some kid oen cause I actually had some really cool idea. Marketing stunt indeed."

^ I have no idea what happened to my comment, what I meant to say was...

Wow, that was...completely unoriginal. And here I thought some kid won because he actually had some really cool idea. Marketing stunt indeed.

AppleJuice: Oct 26th 2006; 3:37PM

Mission Possible, wow. How original.

Rootbeer: Oct 26th 2006; 5:09PM

Dear VTech:

Why do you even make hardware? Wouldn't it make more sense to be a software-only company, and target your titles to inexpensive, child-friendly platforms such as the Nintendo Gamecube and Gameboy Advance?

Or is the profit margin on cramming last-gen technology into brightly-colored custom casings really that ludicrous?

obo: Oct 26th 2006; 5:54PM

That thing looks... hackable.

Hmmmmmmmm.

N: Oct 26th 2006; 5:56PM

I dunno about you, but if I was still a kid and I asked for a Wii or a 360 and my parents instead got me some vtech thing... I'd stab'em with an icepick. Okay, maybe not an icepick, but I'd probably sell it for drugs to cope with the loss of my hopes and dreams.

Vasahond: Oct 26th 2006; 6:15PM

Hey, I could use a $10,000 scholarship. Maybe I could come up with a game called Ultra Man with a green robot that shoots numbers at other robots. Totally original.

alienclay: Oct 27th 2006; 7:47AM

if the kid is old enough to tell the diff from this and a PsWii60 than maybe this is not the best buy. but for younger kids 3-6 i would be all over this as a parent. i learned quite a bit from educational games on an apple 2e when i was that age, (even a little programing) and it was probably a lot better for me than the NES consoles my friends we're wasting their time with.

Austin: Oct 27th 2006; 9:02AM

LAME

Seth: Oct 27th 2006; 9:23AM

V-FLAAAAAAAAASSSH!!! OH MY GOD! YES YES YES YES YES! Now we can play our games from Blockbuster.

Mabui: Oct 28th 2006; 10:42PM

I wonder if I should get this for my Niece.. she's like 5 years old.. hrm.. that would be kinda cool.. still up in the air about what to get her father.. though it is still only october (Even if its ending)

Oh,and the idea... Very much "Where in the World is Carmen Sandeigo?" indeed.. that was an okay game though.. I prefered less brainpower in my games though!

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