Hasbro Announces Partnership With Xplored to Bring AI, Smart Technology to Games

Hasbro has announced a new partnership that will add smart-sensing technology, AI and dynamic multimedia to its board game line. This week, Hasbro announced that it had reached a strategic partnership with Xplored, an Italian company best known for making Teberu, a kind of console made specifically for board games. As a part of the partnership, Xplored will develop a new tabletop platform that combines physical and digital play. 

The Teberu console might be a good indicator of what the partnership entails. Teberu's game board uses smart dice, RFIDs, and sensors to keep track of gameplay and resolving rules in real time. The technology also comes with thinks like a sound system and LED lights to help track various kinds of rules and provide information to players. 

Interestingly, Hasbro believes that this could be a way to incorporate AI into its board game line. "As the global leader in tabletop games, we envision a future where technology seamlessly integrates into analog gaming experiences and working with Xplored enables us to deliver innovative gameplay to our players and fans, limitless digital expansions to physical games, seamless onboarding, and powerful AI-driven game mechanics," said Adam Biehl, senior vice president and general manager, Hasbro Gaming, in a press release announcing the partnership. 

AI technology is all the rage in Silicon Valley and beyond and many companies are looking into what AI can do to transform their companies' workflows. AI-related companies have largely driven a rally of the stock market over the course of this year, with companies looking into ChatGPT and other rival systems to replicate some work processes to varying degrees of success. Notably, Hasbro was caught in an AI controversy earlier this year when an alleged insider claimed that Hasbro's Wizards of the Coast was working on an AI system for Dungeons & Dragons, a claim Wizards of the Coast denied.