It never made it to Australia, and now it never will: Sony’s newest generation AIBO may have captured the hearts of millions, but not so many wallets.
Sony has announced it will discontinue the AIBO line, and its top-of-the-line QUALIA products, and instead concentrate on more profitable lines such as Bravia.
As part of last week’s profit results, Sony announced that development on new AIBO robots had stopped and production would end in June 2006. The QRIO concept robot will also cease production.”R&D in the AI area which was developed in the AIBO and QRIO businesses will continue and will be deployed in the broad range of consumer electronics products”, Sony announced in its profit statement.
Meanwhile, the QUALIA range, which has so far produced a high-end rear-projection TV and high end projector in Australia, and dozens more products in Japan such as the QUALIA 010 Headphones, has finished development. Sony said it will gradually terminate production and sales by region.
Sony maintained that it would continue after-sales support for all its products, however.
