Bruce Boyes's Blog

January 2006 Archives

Sony Bails on Robots

This EETimes article implies that Sony is not capable of selling $2000 entertainment Aibo pets profitably. Sony will cut 10,000 jobs and pour more money into TVs and high-density DVDs.

So much for what many view as a robotic success story: the Aibo US$2000 electronic pets. I don't own one, so it's not clear how this dog "keeps diary with pictures and is able to read e-mail or blog content", but it's a bit surprising that a company with Sony's technical and marketing expertise (rootkits aside) could not make a go of entertainment robots.

It's always dangerous to draw general conclusions from a specific incident, so I won't. Other successes remain: the useful Roomba floor sweeper and the Wowee remote control toys, each of which have sold over 1 million.

Anyone with some specific insights into why Sony is giving up for now?

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