You know SXSW has become a big launch platform for tech products when boxer Mike Tyson shows up to promote his new iPhone game.
Developer RockLive brought the former heavyweight champ-turned-scary-ear-biter-turned-rehabbed-vegan to Austin Sunday, where he signed memorabilia and did a few interviews – all inside a regulation-sized boxing ring.
Looking trim and fit in jeans and a white V-neck, Tyson appeared excited about “Mike Tyson – Main Event,” a free boxing game launching Tuesday for the iPhone and iPod Touch. In the game, players must defeat an escalating series of nine fictitious fighters before taking on Tyson himself.
“It’s off the hook. It’s just awesome,” Tyson told CNN in his singular high-pitched, cartoon-character voice while shifting back and forth in the ring.
But the game’s biggest appeal may lie in future updates, which will allow players to fight celebrity opponents such Pauly D from MTV’s “Jersey Shore.” Gamers also will be able to take virtual swings at perhaps the World’s Most Hated Man – Osama bin Laden.
Tyson – who had a well-received cameo in 2009’s “The Hangover” – served as a consultant on the game and suggested potential celeb fighters.
“Hopefully, you can tweet who you would like to fight with,” he said. “Maybe Charlie Sheen.”
Hmm.
“I’m not going to let you know everything [about the celebrity fighters], but there are some pretty interesting guys that people might want to take a sock at.”
So why make a mobile boxing game?
“It’s accessible. It’s your phone – you can play at any moment,” Tyson added, as hundreds of onlookers snapped photos and shouted, “Mike! Mike!”
This is not Tyson’s first venture into gaming. “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out,” a popular Nintendo game for the NES, was released in 1987. Tyson was unscripted and unpredictable as always Sunday in comparing the two titles.
“It’s not like that other game, ‘Mike Tyson’s Punch Out,’ where they paid me. Me being the slave to money I was back then, I promoted the game,” he said. “This is a game I’m giving free to the public. You can’t compare this to the old … [game]. It’s like the 21st century ‘Punch Out’ on steroids.”
Several hundred fans waited almost an hour for Tyson to appear while being entertained by a guy in a foam-rubber Tyson suit and a group of “ring girls” with Tyson-esque facial tattoos.
