Sega

Hasbro Brings Sega iDog at Low Price to Amazon.com

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First the word was that the Sega iDog will only sell on Tiger Direct (belongs to Hasbro), now it showed up on Amazon.com for pre-order.

Hasbro has a licensing deal with Sega Toys to distribute the iDog in the USA.
The iDog music robot dog competes with the recently introduced iZ from Zizzle.
The Hasbro iDog is available for only $25.99 for pre-order on Amazon.com. The Zizzle iZ pre-order price is $39.99.

Update:
I4U Reader Dave tells us, that he bought the iDog already at a Target store already for $29.99. Read more

Posted on Thu, 1 Sep 2005 05:01:02 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

SegaToys Fighting RC Beetles on Sale

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AudioCubes is selling the new Sega Toys RC Beetles internationally.

We reported about the rather scary remote controlled bugs in June. They are designed to fight against each other. So better get two.

AudioCubes sells the RC Beetle for $55.00.

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Posted on Wed, 10 Aug 2005 01:51:02 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Blue Sega iDog Atmos

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Sega Toys partners with apparel company Atmos to release a blue Sega iDog.

The Atmos iDog is only sold at Atmos stores in Japan. I really like the white Sega iDog much better. Not sure if the blue one will be a big seller.

The Sega iDog connects to MP3 players and can be use as a speaker, but it also has sensors to react to users by moving its ears and light up LEDs. Sega introduced the iDog this January.
More details in this Sega Toys press-release (Japanese, pdf).

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Posted on Fri, 22 Jul 2005 12:31:57 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

XBox 360 powers House of the Dead 4 Sega Arcade

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Sega is beta testing their new House of the Dead 4 light-gun shooter for the arcade and Gamespot reports it the hardware might be based on Microsoft XBox 360.

This would be apparently already the second time Microsoft and Sega work together on arcade units.
More details on Gamespot.

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Posted on Fri, 15 Jul 2005 08:18:57 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Sega Toys Fighting RC Beetles

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RC Cars are yesterday. Japanese kids play with remote controlled scary beetles.

Sega Toys offers remote controlled (RC) bugs that are designed to fight against another one. The head can be moved around and of course the beetle itself can also crawl around. The remote controlled looks like slice of a tree. Four different beetles are available.

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Posted on Thu, 30 Jun 2005 09:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Sega Toys Homestar: 10,000 Star Sky in your Living Room

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Sega Toys, which just brought us the iDog offers now a Planetarium for the home.

Update 02/14/06:
Homestar available now internationally

The Homestar can project 10,000 stars. It shows real star constellations. Estimated price is about $200.
More details in Sega Toys press-release (pdf, Japanese). See also coverage on Mega-Star (Japanese). First seen on AkihabaraNews (French).

See also the Laser Pod we reviewed.

Posted on Tue, 19 Apr 2005 11:12:58 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Sega iDog Music Pet Robot on Sale Now!

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Update:
Japanese Gadget Exporter AudioCubes has the new interactive Sega iDog music robot dog on sale.

Sega announced the music loving robot dog in January 2005 in Japan.

The iDog is capable of changing its feelings from happy to angry by moving it's ears and rotating the head and by changing the color of the 7 LED lights on its head. The idog music bot has stored music sequences and melodies it will play based on the interaction with its sensors. For instance it gets happy when users touch its ears and pad on its head. It gets surprised when users touch its nose or wave in front of him. The Sega iDog will become angry when users touch its tail.
A MP3 Player like the iPod can be attached to the iDog via 3.5mm audio cable. IT has a mono-speaker built-in. A microphone is also present in the iDog.
The Sega Toys iDog measures 116x107x100mm. Batteries hold for 3 hours.

AudioCubes sells the iDog for $89.00.

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Posted on Sat, 2 Apr 2005 00:07:32 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

idog: Sega Music Lovin' Robot Dog

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Sega Toys will start selling in April a small robot dog called idog.

The idog plays about 70 stored children's songs and other favorites. A sensor on top of the dog is used to control the tmep of the song playback. The idog is also able to mimic the owners voice with sound that have similar wavelength. And not to forget the idog has the iPod look, what else.

Sega Toys will sell the idog for 4,179 yen (~$40) in Japan in April. Nikkei.Net reports that Sega Toys will license the idog to Hasbro for US distribution later this year.
More details on Nikkei.Net (subscription) and on ASCII (Japanese).

UPDATE 04/02/05:
AudioCubes sells the iDog for $89.00.
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Posted on Thu, 20 Jan 2005 08:53:04 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

New Sega Real-time Voice Analysis Technology

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Sega announces the Magical VEngine a real-time voice analysis tool that produces realistic mouth movements based on the emotions and feelings of an animation character.
Conventional voice animation technology reproduces mainly the vowel movements of the mouth, but Sega's new Magical VEngine can produce the consonants for a greater range of expressions. Sega plans to use Magical VEngine in their game software.
More details on JCN Network.

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