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by Elizabeth Jeffries on June 15, 2006
| $4.00 |  |
Charlie, a trader hooked on the eBay auction site, is offering to sell a “Roboraptor, unwanted gift used once.” He posts a heavily discounted asking price, about one-third the cost of this hit robotic toy during last December’s pre-Christmas rush. Roboraptor’s predecessors—Robosapien, Robosapien V2, and RoboPet, all released in 2003 and 2004—make up the rest of the over 100 items up for bid to second-hand robot enthusiasts.
This sort of transaction is completed countless times a year. Robotic toys are the latest trend in a huge toy market worth $31.8 billion in the United States alone in 2005, according to the research firm NPD Group. The toy generations breed and spread rapidly—and go “extinct” fast, too. About a million Roboraptors were produced last summer in Dongguang, China, marketed by Wowwee Toys in Hong Kong, and shipped all over the world by early fall. This year Roboreptile will be the new Wowwee wonder, and will surpass its unathletic ancestors by being able to hop, jump, roar, bite, and even…
