Rolly is an egg-shaped digital robotic music player made by Sony,[1] combining music functions with robotic dancing. It has two wheels that allow it to rotate and spin, as well as two bands of colored LED light running around its edge and cup-like "wings" (or "arms" according to the Sony sonystyle USA website) which can open and close on either end, all of which can be synchronized to the music being played.
Rolly has several operating modes, including Bluetooth functionality. Rolly can play music streamed directly from any Bluetooth-enabled cell phone, computer, or mp3 player. Rolly is able to dance along to streaming music, but the Rolly Choreographer software produces far better results when it analyzes tracks and creates motion files before loading them onto Rolly. The Rolly player uses .mtf files to store motion data along with a particular music track. Pre-made motion files can be downloaded and uploaded from Rolly Go.
Rolly also has an accelerometer which detects if the player is laying horizontally or being held upright. When held upright, the track next/previous can be controlled by the top wheel and volume up/down can be controlled by the bottom wheel. Tracks can be shuffled by holding the unit upright, pressing the button once, then shaking the unit up and down (light color changes to purple). You can return to continuous play (light color blue) by simply repeating this process.
Rolly has 2 gigabytes of flash memory to store music files.[2] In some markets it came pre-loaded with the track Boogie Wonderland by Earth, Wind & Fire.[3]
On August 20, 2007, Sony launched an initial teaser advertising campaign for the product.[4] The product was unveiled on September 20, 2007, and went on sale in Japan on September 29, and was for sale at the Sony sonystyle USA website[5] for $229.99 USD, down from $399.99 USD. It is available in black and white. Sony offers the "Engrave it." option for this item, and a number of accessories, including "arms" in different colors.
Around 2009, the Rolly appeared to be discontinued.[6]
In 2015 Sony presented a Bluetooth speaker featuring a similar design and feature set as the Rolly boasted, with the addition of an OLED display and support for voice commands.[7][8]
It is a single internal entity overseeing all wholly owned development studios within SIE. It is responsible for the creative and strategic direction of development and production of all computer entertainment software by all SIE–owned studios, all of which is typically produced exclusively for the PlayStation family of consoles.
With the launch of the PlayStation 5 in 2020, Worldwide Studios brands all releases be it internal or externally developed under the "PlayStation Studios" label.[3]
History
SCE Worldwide Studios (SCE Worldwide Studios) was established on September 14, 2005, with Phil Harrison being appointed as president.[4] On May 16, 2008, Shuhei Yoshida became president.[5] In April 2016, Sony's Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and Sony Network Entertainment International (SNEI) divisions merged, creating SIE Worldwide Studios.[5] Hermen Hulst succeeded Shuhei Yoshida as president of SIE Worldwide Studios on November 7, 2019, with Yoshida being delegated to lead Sony's indie development.[6]
Naughty Dog is home to the ICE Team, one of Sony's Worldwide Studios central technology groups. The term ICE originally stands for Initiative for a Common Engine which describes the original purpose of the group.[25] The ICE Team focuses on creating core graphics technologies for Sony's worldwide first party published titles, including low-level game engine components, graphics processing pipelines, supporting tools, and graphics profiling and debugging tools. The ICE Team also supports third party developers with a suite of engine components, and a graphics analysis, profiling, and debugging tool for the RSX. Both enable developers to get better performance out of PlayStation hardware.[26][27]
XDev
XDev Europe, established in 2000 and based in Liverpool, England,[7] collaborates with independent development studios across Europe and other PAL territories to publish content to PlayStation platforms all over the world. XDev has helped to create and publish, titles such as the LittleBigPlanet, Buzz!, MotorStorm and Invizimals series, Super Stardust HD, Heavenly Sword, Heavy Rain, Beyond, Tearaway and Resogun. Partners include independent developers such as Quantic Dream, Magenta Software, Climax Studios, Novarama, Supermassive Games and Sumo Digital, as well as SCE subsidiaries such as Media Molecule and Guerrilla Games. In addition to funding projects, XDev offer full production, project management and game design support. Titles are also supported with community management, online production and dedicated outsourcing management facilities. XDev work directly with Marketing and PR teams in all Sony territories to promote and publish games worldwide.[28][29]