Sega planning robot girlfriend

OutRun! Virtua Tennis! Sonic! And, er, a girlfriend. Sega in Japan may have had one drink too many...

Ian Osborne

The Japanese love their robots. Over there, you can get all sorts of robots for all sorts of uses. Robot pets are especially popular in densely-populated cities, there’s a robot nanny that recognises your child’s face and reads it a bedtime story and even a robot dance partner programmed to follow your lead. But we reckon this new robot girlfriend from Sega is a robot too far…

Her name is EMA, an acronym (as if you hadn’t guessed) for Eternal Maiden Actualization. With a top half shaped as if she's walked out of a 90s Disney animated feature, she has legs like tree trunks and no face at all. Also, as she’s just 38cm high, it's, er, hard to see who she's supposed to appeal to.

But what does she do? We’re told she ‘walks like a lady’, and also sings and dances. She avoids nearby objects using infra-red sensors, which can also detect a nearby person. And this is the clincher. If you get close enough for her to sense your presence, she goes into ‘love mode’ and gives you a kiss. Just what we’ve always wanted – a frenchie from a foot-high robot with no mouth.

“Strong, tough and battle-ready are some of the words often associated with robots, but we wanted to break that stereotype and provide a robot that's sweet and interactive,” said Sega Toys’ Minako Sakanoue. “She's very lovable and though she's not a human, she can act like a real girlfriend.” Hmmm.

EMA is released in Japan on 26th September, and will cost around £90 in real money. Sega hopes to flog 10,000 of them in the first year, presumably to sad, lonely men. We’ve no idea whether it will make it to these shores, and to be honest, we don’t particularly care.

File this one under ‘oh dear’. And Sega - really?

26/06/08

Not Sega's best idea.

Not Sega's best idea.