Poo-Chi
The chunky gray robot dog that kicked off the early-2000s robo-pet craze. Poo-Chi barked, sang, and showed its mood through pixelated red LED "eyes," responded when you petted its head or spoke into its nose, and — best of all — sang synchronized songs with any other Poo-Chi nearby.
Poo-Chi was made by Sega Toys and distributed outside Japan by Tiger Electronics, a Hasbro subsidiary, launching on April 1, 2000 at a pocket-money-friendly $24.99. It was a deliberately cheap answer to Sony's AIBO robot dog, which cost roughly a hundred times more, and it arrived just as Hasbro's Furby sales were cooling — a new robotic pet for a new decade.
The hard gray body wasn't cuddly, but it was interactive: a light sensor in the nose, a touch sensor on the head, and voice-command response let it react to attention, while a grid of red LEDs formed hearts and expressions for eyes. Its signature trick was social — put two or more Poo-Chis together and they'd "talk" and bark out synchronized songs. Kids ate it up, and the toy sold over 10 million units worldwide within eight months of its debut, with miniature versions turning up as McDonald's Happy Meal toys.
Poo-Chi launched a whole robotic-pet family — Meow-Chi, Dino-Chi, Chirpy-Chi and more — and helped set off the wider robo-pet wave that ran through the early 2000s. The original was discontinued in 2002 as the fad cooled, but it remains the little robot dog that started it all.
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