And this is useful for WHAT?

I cant believe Sony is wasting R&D power on crap like this. No wonder they missed the MP3 craze.

This is still the STUPIDEST THING EVER. haha What were they thinking when they designed that? and $400?!

It's the inevitably sad end to the human race and our progress in civilization..when we are too busy to hang out with real humans and instead choose to amuse ourselves with idiotic toys like the rolly (for those of us who cannot afford aibos).

That's nothing, I hot-glued some empty Mountain Dew cans together to make modern art.

And then I hot-glued an MP3 player to it.

C'mon guys, this product will be a landmark in the world of creativity

i wish they bought Aibo back instead. Surely Aibo is turning in it's grave as this is what sony robotics have made after years of experience with aibo.

You'd think they'd have shelved it after all the laughter that greeted the first video of it.

@jutzuro: I thought it was a landmark for hubris.

This has been out for a while in white. 20-something college girls can't get enough of it. It is "cute" and rolls around behind you as you clean your 200sq/ft, 1200USD a month mini-mini apartment.

Stupid as it is, people just love it.

This may sound weird but I tried it out in Japan and it sounds weirdly good, it's as though it's wings are muting beat frequencies....if only it didn't look so stupid.

to ppl complaining how useless this thing is:
yeah so are the toys you've played with long time ago. like those ****ing expensive lego sets. so are your video game consoles and video games. so are those executive toys made out of silver and gold. whatever.

$400 is too much for something which rolls around in time with music. You can bet there will be an army of cheap knockoffs before long that reproduce 90% of the functionality for $50 or less.

I'm afraid if I hate this thing too much, fate will spite me by making it the next iPod. NOO!!!

Izzat one of those camera-loaded capsules that record their journeys through digestive tracts? This would be the one for elephants I guess.

Seems appropriate, as after it's run it course you'd find the sony logo on a pile of crap. This is yet another turd from sony's flaccid r&d.

At this point, what's there to say that hasn't been said already?

This is incredibly useless, and too expensive.

Maybe there's a 9 year old girl somewhere, with a family that will dish out the cash for it, play around with it for about 2 minutes and then will put it in a drawer next to her virtual pet key chain.

This is really a child's hand grenade... to blast to smithereens whatever intelligence the parent/purchaser has left.

/how do products like this even make it off the drawing board?!

I'm willing to bet that a lot of people are going to buy this shit because of the insane obscurity and novelty. I mean, who the hell else will produce a $400 spinning Happy Meal toy? We will likely never see another one of these from anyone un-Sony in a long long time. With my affinity for pretty lights and spinning, shiny things, even I'm tempted, but at 400 bones, the practical side of Kaiser winces and grabs my balls saying "You buy this, and you lose these".

All in all, I have to admit, these weird product releases actually make me happy, because this crazy shit is entertaining to read about every now and then. And to all the people complaining about how useless it is, just be glad you're not actually obligated to buy it, and point and laugh at the people who do. You will feel tons better.

This is the ultimate kind of fashiony "just because it exists / just because it's japanese" item. I'm kind of thrilled they make goofy tech like this even though I don't feel the need for it. I think I'd like it better if it had some kind of network access, email alerts or something. Or if it just bounced around the apartment going "HARRO! HARRO! HEY HEY! GOOD BYE!". Mmmm, that's some good Gundam...

@saych: I know for a fact that those LEGO sets helped me in college! True story, we actually had an engineering class where LEGOs were an integral part. :D

Back on track, this is useless. Completely and utterly. It doesn't do anything (useful) that you don't already have, and it prolly doesn't do it as well, either. I'll take that same dollar amount and build myself most of a new computer, thanks.

Person#1: Hey check it out, just got a new Sony MP3 player.
Person#2: Cool play something.
Person#1 presses Play, Rolly begins playing song & rolls away.

@kahri: Person #2: "We are no longer friends..."

this is probably flash mem because no way in hell a hard drive can last with all that rolling. which means you only get about 1 gig considering you're paying a hundred for the sony label, another hundred for the rolling, and another hundred for the lights and arms. so what you're really doing is paying 400 dollars for a 50 dollar shuffle. bravo sony. i'm surprised the ps3 wasn't a giant katamari ball of win.