“If Disney has its way, your next personal computer purchase will find its mouse bearing a likeness to Disney’s own Mickey Mouse. Yes, next month Disney will start shipping out kid-friendly PCs, complete with mouse-eared peripherals and bundled with a ton of branded software,” Rick Aristotle Munarriz reports for The Motley Fool.
“Disney has an uphill challenge here. Mattel had licensed PCs themed to its Barbie and Hot Wheels properties bomb — and at lower selling prices. Disney is also risking rubbing some of its partners the wrong way. Hewlett-Packard is the sponsor of Disney’s popular Mission Space attraction, yet the system’s printer is a Lexmark . Disney’s important relationship with Pixar is already strained, yet its machines will be powered by Microsoft’s operating system. Pixar is controlled by Apple Computer chief Steve Jobs,” Munarriz reports.
Full article here.
You can see the thing, called the “Disney Dream Desk PC,” at the Disney Store here.
MacDailyNews Take: It could be argued that a PC doesn’t really need plastic ears to be considered “Mickey Mouse,” all it really needs is Microsoft’s Windows.
Nice one “Someone Who Loves You”
The Nemomac will kick Mickey’s butt.
Oh look – a Trojan Mouse!
jbelkin has it right on the money. It’s going to be considered a ‘baby computer’ by anyone over 5. So there is only a 2 year age segment of kids who this thing can be bought for.
Paying a premium for licensed products is a fact of life for things like tooth brushes and lunchboxes, but a computer?
A $1,000 computer? I just don’t see it. Actually, now that I think about it, this thing may have NOTHING at all to do with Disney. Just the way that a Little Mermaid pencil case has nothing to do with Disney. The Disney name and Mickey Mouse character are licensed by a third company who bears the brunt of all the risk, hoping that the name Disney and the Mickey Mouse character will make it special enough to stand out from all the other products. Disney has it on their site to give it a push (or the space is BOUGHT by the third company).
This explains to me the stupid thinking behind this product, very possibly created by a company that has NO experience in the kids market. I was very close to companies like Disney and Hasbro in the 90’s, working on catalogs, advertising, and TV commercials. And licensing is a huge part of the business. And now more than ever, the kids market is splitting into smaller and smaller fragments as children become more sophisticated.
This product is just too expensive for the limited age group it would appeal to. 2-5? 3-5?
Not that many kids under 5 (except mine!) have their own $1,000 computer.
This thing is going to bomb.
dv
I’m pretty confident my kid will thoroughly enjoy playing with his Mac SE-30 some day soon, which is still running just fine these days thank-you-very-much, and it will certainly be a helluva lot more fun – for both of us – when that time comes!
LOL
That machine looks so ridiculous. Those ears! LOL
Oh my God, you’d have to be STUPID to buy one of those P.O.S.
The same can also be said for every other Wintel box out there.