Pepper robot goes on sale as SoftBank announces $589M joint venture with Alibaba, Foxconn

At a press conference outside Tokyo today, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son announced that its Pepper robot would go on sale in Japan this Saturday, June 20. Pepper, a humanoid robot developed by SoftBank Group subsidiary Aldebaran Robotics, has already been greeting the Japanese telco giant’s customers in select retail stores since its debut a year ago.

In addition, Son announced the joint venture SoftBank Robotics Holdings with Foxconn CEO Terry Guo and Alibaba Group chairman Jack Ma. SoftBank Corp will retain a 60 percent share, with Foxconn and Alibaba each holding 20 percent of the US$589 million venture that is expected to produce thousands of humanoid robots per year. Many of the Pepper units that have been made over the past year were produced by Foxconn.

Japan is no stranger to advanced humanoid robots. Honda’s ASIMO has played soccer with Barack Obama and HRP-4C, commonly known as Miim, can even cosplay and sing karaoke. Pepper is not an athlete or a musician, but when it goes on sale later this week, its mass-market availability and interaction with human emotions may make it a superstar.

A household companion

SoftBank wants Pepper to be the first household humanoid robot in the world. Pepper retails for JPY 198,000 (about US$1,600), though its three-year support plan and warranty commitment raise that figure to JPY 1,093,400 (approximately US$9,040). 1,000 units are for sale in the initial run for consumers.

Like its Aldebaran predecessor NAO, Pepper is designed to respond to the human emotions of joy, surprise, anger, doubt, and sadness. However, Pepper uses IBM’s Watson to run an internal emotion engine that governs the robot’s feelings independently of human interaction.

Darkness, a rainy day, or bad news drawn from the web elicit melancholy from Pepper, but some sun, a compliment, or a win for the SoftBank Hawks baseball team will bring “his” mood back up.

One of Pepper’s new features is the kokorogumi, a unit of happiness represented by hearts on its screen that accrue with acts of kindness. Pepper’s gamification offers unlockables with every 100 kokorogumi, like new dances and English lessons for children.

With help from independent developers, who were able to place orders on February 27, SoftBank hopes to discover new ways in which Pepper can create bonds with household customers. Already, Pepper can read your body language, facial features, and language to determine your mood, and might try to cheer you up by playing a favorite song.

Getting to work