• The New York Times, Tuesday, September 12, 2006 12:15 PM

That battered old boot will be a New Balance running shoe in a new version of the venerable Monopoly board game Hasbro will release on Thursday. Four more of the eight tokens in the new Monopoly Here and Now edition will be branded, offering game players the chance to be represented by miniature versions of a Toyota Prius hybrid car, an order of McDonald's French fries, a cup of Starbucks coffee or a Motorola Razr cell phone. "We thought, let's try to get iconography that's much more relevant to people today," says Mark Blecher, svp for marketing at the Hasbro Games unit of Hasbro. The five marketers whose products are becoming branded tokens were chosen by consumers, who voted online last spring as part of a promotion. They did not ask to be included in the new edition, nor did they pay Hasbro a fee. Fear not, traditionalists: The classic 1935 Monopoly game will still be sold with its battleships, thimbles and B&O Railroad.

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