WowWee
| Founded | 1988 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
|---|---|
| Founder | Richard Peter Yanofsky |
| Headquarters | Hong Kong, China |
| Website | www |
WowWee Group Limited, is a privately owned, Hong Kong-based company that focuses on "breakthrough consumer technologies". They are best known for their biomorphic robot RoboSapien and their interactive balancing robot MiP.
WowWee is a leading designer, developer, marketer and distributor of innovative, hi-tech consumer robotic and consumer entertainment products. The introduction of WowWee’s Robosapien™ robot in 2004 revolutionized the way people interact with robotic companions. One of the most popular entertainment robots in the world with global sales of more than 6 million units, the Robosapien robot was the first commercially available biomorphic robot. The Robosapien humanoid product line evolved to include Robosapien V2 robot, which added functionality like speech capability, and RS Media™ robot, which featured a complete multimedia experience that allowed users to create and edit functions.
MiP, released in 2014, continues to be one of the world’s most popular consumer robots and the winner of more than 10 major Tech and Toy awards including the Toy Industry Associations’ 2015 TOTY award for Innovative Toy of the Year.
With offices in Montreal, San Diego, Hong Kong, WowWee’s focus on the development of breakthrough consumer technologies continues to forge new categories in personal robotics and entertainment with its imaginative, innovative, award-winning gadgets and toys.
Initially from Canada, the two founding brothers (Richard and Peter Yanofsky) moved to Hong Kong to form the company in 1982 as an independent research & development and manufacturing outfit. As an OEM seller, they produced products such as the Power Rangers Power Gloves and the Talking Tots dolls. In 1987 the company changed focus, building and marketing toys under their own brand in response to a fall in OEM orders. They produced a number of new products, including a robotic dog (MegaByte), T-Rex, and the Animaltronics and Dinotronics lines of remote control animals. In 1998 the company was purchased by Hasbro.
Shortly before the Hasbro sale,Peter Yanofsky reportedly caught physicist/roboticist Mark Tilden on the Discovery Channel, and soon hired him as a consultant. Initially Tilden worked part-time with WowWee while he continued his work with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, but in 2001 Tilden joined the company full-time. One of his first products with WowWee was the B.I.O. Bug, released in 2001. Unfortunately, while sales were good they weren't as strong as either WowWee or Hasbro would have liked. In part this has been attributed to the after-effects of 9/11 and the anthrax attacks, while Tilden has also expressed disappointment with some of the limitations placed on the product design by Hasbro. After moving to WowWee full-time in 2001, Tilden focused his attention on developing Robosapien.
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