Kurt Shintaku's Blog

There’s a really really cool thing that the Rare, the makers of Viva Pinata, did with the recent release of “Viva Pinata Trouble in Paradise”:  They included the ability to obtain Pinatas by trading cards.

There’s a two-dimentional bar code on the Pinata Vision Cards that your Xbox Vision Camera can identify in the game.  Hold a print out of the card to the camera and BOING!  A brand new Pinata will show up for your personal use!

We’ve created a treasure hunt giving you the chance to unlock exclusive Piñata colour schemes. Scattered throughout Xbox.com are 25 hidden ‘Piñata Vision’ cards. Look for [the] hidden logo around the site. Clicking on it reveals a code readable by your Xbox LIVE Vision camera. Simply point your camera at the code (on screen or printed out) to unlock killer Piñata paintjobs and cool accessories. Happy hunting – the chance to pimp your Horstachio is just a few clicks away.

What exactly do they look like once you “open them up”?  Well, here’s an example of one of them, to the left, also known as “Hedgehog”:

Now if you print out the card and hold it up to the Xbox Live Vision Camera connected to you Xbox 360 WHILE PLAYING VIVA PINATA TROUBLE IN PARADISE, or you actually hold up your Xbox Live Vision Camera to the screen of your computer, the camera will be able to interpret the bar code and produce the Pinata depicted in the picture.  If you have trouble with the camera, check this video out.

So where do you get these Vision Cards?  If you go to the the UK Xbox.com web site they’re doing a contest right now where you have to look for these hidden eggs on the web site.  They’ll lead you to special downloadable .PDF files that contain the special Vision Card with the bar code.  There’s supposed to be 25 hidden all over the web site!  (I’ve only been able to find 13 though)

Supposedly there will be card decks as well of Pinata Vision Cards that will be tradable and usable across multiple systems.  And before you get all antsy about it “costing money”, don’t worry:  The Pinata Vision Cards are FREE.  There’s nothing to buy.  The only question is “who’s going to have the most Pinatas!”

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Something that they apparently left out is the fact that in order for you to use the Xbox Vision Camera with VP Trouble in Paradise and use your Vision Pinata Cards, you must be at least at level 4 otherwise the camera won’t work.  When you’re in your garden, once your at level 4, you’ll be able to put the cards in front of the camera to obtain the new pinatas.