Hasbro’s Dancing AMP Robot to Battle Rolly

By Nick Mokey June 20, 2008

If you thought that Sony’s Rolly was an experiment that would never make it to market, you were wrong. If you thought it would at least never make it out of Japan, you were wrong again. And if you thought, as we did, that it would never have any competitors, well, wrong yet again.

Toy-maker Hasbro announced their very own robotic dancing machine on Friday, the AMP. Short for “Automated Music Personality,” the AMP will blast your music, dance to it, light up, and add its very own sound effects.

Unlike the Rolly, which was an MP3 player in itself, the AMP will plug into any existing MP3 player to get its tunes. Also unlike the Rolly, which was quite petite, Hasbro’s monstrosity will stand a towering 29 inches tall and use a five-inch woofer combined with two tweeters to deliver the music, making it as much a jukebox on wheels as a novelty robot.

After connecting up an MP3 player and sealing it up into a shell in the AMP’s back, users can control him with an IR remote. He’ll dance songs automatically, but users can also mix DJ scratching sound effects in with the remote to participate. You can also set him to always face the remote, drive around following you, or simply park and play music.

While the AMP seems to have one-upped the Rolly in the features department, it also seems to have one-upped the Rolly’s already questionable $399.99 price. When the AMP shows up in retail store in October, it will sell for a cool $500. The six D batteries and three AAA batteries needed to run it for 10 hours? Not included.

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