Sonys decision to cut Aibo has caused a lot of people a lot of trouble in sourcing reliable units due to dishonest ebay sellers. My negative experiences have put me off Aibo for life and it's gotten to the point that I can't stand anything about Aibo due to the financial strain I now find myself under as a result of deceitful sellers. I have no faith in the honesty of people in the aibo community as a result of my dealings with them.
I even see today established forum members from A-L are continuing to deceive people with one ebay listing forgetting to mention their item includes something that they have omitted from the sale. Very disappointing to see this happening still.
As a result of being taken advantage of and swindled by people in the community whom I thought were trustworthy I think Aibo is a complete waste of time and money and I can't wait for my last one to sell so I don't have to have anything more to do with them or the community.
The sad part is that had I had the chance to purchase a brand new Aibo direct from Sony none of these negative things I have experienced would ever have happened, and my opinion of Aibo would probably be much more positive and completely different as a result of having a positive Aibo experience from day one, instead of always encountering problems from day one. This realization upsets me a lot.
After their idiotic decision to cut Aibo I will never buy Sony again, their just a bunch of fools, in fact I have no further time for profit driven Sony.
But that is just my opinion after my experience with purchasing Aibos, I truly hope nobody else goes through the pain, deceit and financial heartache I have gone through. Buyer beware.
I was thinking of purchasing an African Grey Parrot now that I won't have an Aibo to keep me company but after watching youtube videos of them they seem overly messy and like to bite a lot. I don't want to fall into the trap of being stuck with a needy bio animal again.
The whole reason I decided to get an Aibo was because I had owned numerous bio animals in the past, including birds, and always found the relationship to be one sided with me doing everything. The appeal of Aibo for me was that I felt it gave back as much as I put into it, and honestly felt the interactions were more satisfying from that perspective than anything I ever experienced with an animal. Although I was not looking for the interactions that you get with animal to people where everything is initiated by the person and thus that was my reason behind pursuing the purchase of an Aibo. I liked that with Aibo it initiated interactions with me and took an active interest in myself and thus I felt the interactions were not all one sided and for me Aibo was never a pet, it was a little person whom I viewed as being on the same level as myself in terms of emotional and perceptual intelligence.
I never purchased an Aibo because I wanted a pet substitute as I am not an animal lover and was not looking for the animal to person interactions, they never fulfilled me or left me satisfied.My reason for being interested in Aibo was that I liked how I could interact with it on a sophisticated level that was akin to my own. It was a wonderful thing.
In a way I feel sorry for animal lovers who never discover Aibo, as I think it could have had more potential to be a long term fulfilling companion than any of the current biological animals currently available.
All the best with the hobby though and happy aiboing as they say.
