Ugobe has finally hatched its baby dinosaur in time for this Christmas rather than last, but can Pleo fulfill its potential as the biggest robotic toy since its Furby forefather?
Ugobe sent me a review unit to play with for two weeks and, while I found it to be a marvel of engineering, I was not convinced the toy would have mass appeal.
The price will certainly be an obstacle to many parents buying Pleo for their children. It costs $349, $150 more than envisaged when Pleo was first unveiled almost two years ago.
The packaging and the quality of the build seem to justify the price though. Ugobe, based in Emeryville in the Bay Area, has former Apple employees on its staff and the box that Pleo comes in is well-designed as is the battery-charging accessory inside.
Pleo himself is the most advanced robotic toy to date. He initially needs to be awakened in a birthing process, aimed at helping you to bond with the toy. By gently shaking him, the dinosaur gradually unfurls, opens his eyes and gets to his feet.
Everyone in the office was wowed by the cuteness and realism of this baby camarasaurus as it walked around without the need for a remote control, exploring its environment and emitting plaintive dinosaur cries.
However, disconcertingly, the novelty of Pleo soon wore off and he was left to wander around unattended.
It was the same story at home with my nine-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter. They were initially fascinated with Pleo – how he would avoid walking off the ends of tables, enjoy being tickled, hate being held by his tail and would munch on a leaf or engage in a tug of war.
But he was slow and still “didn’t do enough things”, they said, retiring to their video games after a few minutes. My daughter has grown out of Bratz dolls and my son prefers remote-controlled cars to shuffling dinosaurs, so perhaps they were not the ideal testers. But visiting friends soon got bored with Pleo as well.
The kids also thought the pet’s motors were too noisy and the speakers were not good enough quality.
They did not exploit the ability to program Pleo to do different things using an SD memory card and this feature is still being developed at Pleoworld.com.
I can imagine the Furby modding fraternity loving this aspect of the toy and creating different personalities and abilities for Pleo.
But as Ugobe’s first effort, Pleo seems like Version 1.0 of a robot that will take many more revisions before it can become the truly mobile, responsive machine that will engage children of today for more than a few minutes.
Until that is achieved, they will probably be happier racing remote-controlled cars and enjoying the alternate reality of Halo 3.
