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History
The story of this game starts with the release of the XaviXPORT, a console released in 2004 by SSD COMPANY LIMITED. SSD, which was formed by former Nintendo’s engineers, knew the Japanese video game market well, but needed help with the international release of the XaviXPORT. As such, they reached out to NS Strategic Ventures, a Global Business to Business company. Peter Newman, which was a Managing Partner for the U.S. Division of NS Strategic Ventures, was brought in in the XaviX team as the General Manager of the U.S. Branch Office.
As part of his role as a GM, Peter had to management of all U.S. operations, including the customer service and the logistics for Retail and eCommerce sales. While the XaviXPORT was very innovative piece of technology, it wasn’t long before another console came along to foil its plan. Release on November 19, 2006, the Nintendo Wii took the world by surprise. With its motion sensing wireless controller, the Wii quickly become the most popular console of its time. With such a competition, the team behind the XaviXPORT had to find new strategies to appeal to the market.
While it was clear that the XaviXPORT couldn’t directly compete with the Wii in the home console market, Peter understood that the console was still superior when it came to accurately simulate sports, making it the superior options for amateur and professional. With that in mind, the U.S. XaviX team developed their own new market segment building business with over 20,000 K-12 Schools, YMCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs, Senior Living Locations, and Community Centers. They also created the Jackie Chan XaviX Fitness School Dash program that involved 55 middle schools in 9 cities, and over 11,500 students.
By 2008, it became clear to Peter that all of the strategic partnership he had developed to promote the XaviXPORT had immense value and that he could use these connections to develop technologies for this market. As such, he created Lifestyle Interactive Technologies (LIT), with a mission to develop interactive technologies for Schools, Senior Homes, YMCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs, and other institutions.
One of the first projects of LIT was to develop a game specifically for the Century Council, a foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility. As LIT expertise was mainly with the XaviXPORT, it comes to no surprise that the game was developed for this system.
Release
The game was released in 2009 under the title Ask, Listen, Learn: Kids and Alcohol Don’t Mix. The game is played with the XaviX Step Sensor. It takes the player on a course between different locations. You need to reach the location while running, avoiding obstacles or picking up trash. Your run gets frequently interrupted by NPC asking you True or False question around alcohol. The game also allowed players to create an avatar to track your progress across different play sessions and even to build a team and compete against each other.
Video
Collector’s Notes:
– The number of copies of this game is unknown. The game comes in a generic white box with a sticker of the game on it.
– There’s a serial inside the cover flap. Mine is 1001299 which might suggest that at least 1299 units have been produced.
– This is the only U.S. game that was not sold in store.
