Poo chi? I'm unfamiliar Could you enlighten me :3?
My pleasure! Poo Chis were Sega’s answer to the robot pet in the 2000s. Technically, Poo Chi was the specific name for the dog-type robot; the entire brand of toys were known as Robo Chi - robopets. There were dogs (Poo Chi), cats (Meow Chi), dinosaurs (apparently called “Dino Chi”), and even weird metal babies (you guessed it: Baby Chi, but I think they were also marketed as simply “Robo Baby”). Poo Chi is kind of the catch-all term, but “robopet” is far more accurate, and “Robo Chi” refers to this specific line of toys. They really didn’t do much, especially compared to Furbies, which came out two years prior - they had a head button that you could press that showed their emotions on an LED display over their eyes (hearts for happy, smaller eyes for tired, etc). They had limited mobility and could stand up, lurch forward while barking/meowing/crying/whatever, and...well, actually, that’s about it. They’re pretty interesting aesthetically, though, in a way a lot of that era’s robopets weren’t. Take a look:
The sharp, angular lines making up Poo Chi’s body are really appealing to me.
Meow Chi is far rounder, but still very cool to look at; sort of like one of those Lucky Cats that you see in stores sometimes. The baby is just weird; l I think it’s because she doesn’t have a visor like the other pets, just two dead, black eyes.
And of course, there are the Dino Chis, like the one I have; however in the course of making this post I discovered that there’s a pterodactyl one and now have a mighty need
And this is one in action:
Some might argue that these silly little pets paved the path for Aibos. Sega certainly got more precise and complicated with their robopets after the Poo Chi - ahem, Robo Chi - line. But these pixellated predecessors certainly deserve our love and respect.
