only a matter of time before this one turns into another AI Barbie, barbie wifi dreamhouse, talking bear and friends. we should just go retro and start remaking the nintendo power gloves, or the drum pads.
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Oh yeah they make wooden toys in that office that's about to close.
to the last post: Mattel would even find a way to screw up wood toys
Back to the topic on hand- whether you agree with this product or not hacking will always be an issue if you have an accessible database. Yahoo, Sony, V-tech hell even the government has gotten hacked.
So not sure if this is even entirely preventable to a determined sociopath. Given that risk should Mattel choose not to be competitive in this space where everyone will go regardless? Or should Mattel just make wooden toys.
They had to do SOMETHING - they bought Sproutling, Fuhu and Nabi in 2015 and nothing has come of it. This item was supposed to come out 2 years ago, but Sid, as usual, doesn't take the time to actually think executional issues through and voila - another acquisition mess. He also set up his buddy GW with a safe haven when RD was buzz sawing his way through the management team. GW is a nice guy, but he doesn't know how to work his phone, never mind run a technology company. The item is 2 years late and too expensive - it should NEVER have been compared to ALEXA - better to have compared it to a Motorola video baby monitor, but the fine group in PR doesn't understand that industry so they just hitch their wagon to the sound bite of the moment. This is a train wreck about to happen.
This is the solution for a problem that doesn't exist. Amazon Echo understands 3 year olds. Most parents don't want their kid talking to a machine under that. For twice the price, do you really want to buy something from Mattel, whose record in electronics is iffy at best, vs. just buying the Amazon Echo? The other challenge is this will be sold by all retailers in Electronics - not a channel Mattel has any leverage in, nor relationships with the buyers. So the "might of Mattel" means squat when their product is overpriced compared to competitors and in a different channel.
remember when we bought radica and everyone was sooooo excited over those stupid interlocking cubes that we all received as our annual christmas gift and no one could figure out how that crap worked. radica's R&D has all been terminated and that brand was another acquisition fail. reminds me of the year that the morons in charge gave us a plaque with the portraits of the fisher price founders and everyone threw them in a pile by the garbage. HR was pissed but as usual leadership is clueless to what their employees and consumers want. this is why we fail as a standard operating procedure. i don't care how many PLM bombs you drop it won't clean this mess up.
Actually RD had nothing to with this. This is a result of RD's "magic" having run out, the company has to go to the bench to bring "Slid" and "Joff" in the game with the results of a couple of hack electronic companies who were bankrupt because their stuff was out of date. "Slid" and "Joff" are just a couple of posers who take advantage of Mattel's inexperience in electronics and convince CS to buy a couple of "digital" companies to the company has a flag to wave. While this is going on, anyone see that Hasbro launched a new girls property via webisodes (just like Monster High did when it launched)? They're coming for Mattel in a big way, and while they amass their forces, we're stuck here with leadership like RD, SL (the absolute worst), RG (HR windbag hack) "Slid" and "Joff". Where's the leadership and the plan?
$300 for this vs. $179 for Amazon Echo, or free for pretty much any kid over 8 with an iPhone and Siri? This is the device no one asked for, especially at this price. But I guess the Fuhu Nabi team has to work on something - but this will be a fail because Mattel doesn't sell into the electronics buyers, where this would go. Also not sure I get why "Aristotle" has a female voice - they couldn't think of any smart women to name it after? Obviously not "Barbie..." Yet another hand wave by RD to say "look over here, ignore the continued decline of the Barbie business." Wall Street and the press are smarter than that.
Maybe it will be bundled with thingmaker so aristole can craft a 3D mom to nurture the child as well.
This is being run by SM and GW - nothing but wasted money and sub-par results to come. The thing is 2 years late in coming to Market, is poorly named and there are already several other monitoring devices like this out in the market for a fraction of the cost. It'll be marked down one month after it ships (IF it ships).