Taco Bell Playstation Vita Unlock the Box Contest Review February 10, 2012

During CES earlier this year, Taco Bell made the announcement that they would be providing their customers the chance to win the new Sony Vita handheld early in a new promotion they were planning for this month. Well, the Unlock the Box promotion has started and I have plenty to say about it.

It seems that Sony is quite comfortable promoting their products through fast food chains, and I really don’t have a problem with this because it’s no different from what the motion picture industry does with major summer blockbusters.

By purchasing a Taco Bell 5-Buck Box (it doesn’t seem to matter which one) you will receive a box with a unique identification code printed on it, similar to a CD-Key. By visiting the Taco Bell mobile site on your cell phone while at the store (or if you need to, bring the box home with you and redeem the code at home) and giving it your e-mail address, you have the random chance to instantly win a Playstation Vita before the handheld gets an official release. The site itself is pretty easy to navigate and inputting the unlock code on the site is dirt simple.

However, this is not the only chance you have to win, Taco Bell has also released a mobile app for iOS and Android which contains a fun little Augmented Reality game. The problem is that the app is over 20MB in size, making downloading it over 3G at the Taco Bell impossible on an iPhone. UPDATE: Literally right after writing this review the program was patched to be under 20MB. If you decide to download it after getting back home, be aware you can’t use the app’s full functionality without having the actual five-buck box. Your best chance is to bring your food home with you take out. From the Taco Bell app you have another chance to enter the contest, but you’ll have to have better luck than me to get anything out of that. However, the Augmented Reality game is quite fun and quirky and makes good use of the mobile phone features, and features a whole range of awards once you start playing it.

Well, you really can’t rate a contest on the factors of if you win or not alone, because lets face it, you’re not going to win.   UPDATE:  What was a pessimistic joke has, if recent controversy over the promotion is true, taken on a new meaning.  However, unlike Uncharted’s promotion last year, you got a lot out of just participating in that event even if you weren’t a winner of the contest. Other than access to the AR game, there’s no benefits to entering, and the game cannot be played without a five-buck box in the phone’s camera field of view at all times.

It’s still a nice step towards gaming being treated as a legitimate medium on par with its entertainment brothers and sisters like movies or music. Still waiting to see any of Microsoft’s properties trying something like this. Give it a go, if you like Taco Bell you can’t have worse luck than I did.