Description

Furby is an American electronic robotic toy that was originally released in 1998 by Tiger Electronics. It resembles a hamster or owllike creature and went through a period of being a “must-have” toy following its holiday season launch, with continual sales until 2000. Over 40 million Furbies were sold during the three years of its original production, with 1.8 million sold in 1998, and 14 million in 1999. Its speaking capabilities were translated into 14 languages.

Furbies were the first successful attempt to produce and sell a domestically aimed robot. A newly purchased Furby, or a Furby which has been reset, starts out speaking entirely “Furbish”, the unique language that all Furbies speak, but is programmed to start speaking English words and phrases in place of Furbish over time. This process is intended to resemble the process of learning English. The updated Emoto-Tronic Furby, with voice recognition and more complex facial movements, was sold by Hasbro between 2005 and 2007. Another updated Furby with black and white LCD eyes and a mobile app was released for the holiday season in 2012. Another updated Furby with colour LCD eyes, known as Furby Connect was released in 2016. The last new version was released in 2023.