It's exactly what what it says in the article's TITLE ...

"Sony launches crowdfunding platform for its own new products"

What else could that possibly mean ? 

Oh I know what Sony is doing and what they're doing isn't good for the industry ... 

Consumer's should NOT have to help businesses, it is the businesses that should try and earn the customers by THEMSELVES ...

they can lose a ton of money with that if they make a decent marketing push and produce 500k, but only sell 50k (at full price)

that's why many products that go far in R&D or even get to "production ready" status are rejected production if market research indicates low consumer interest

production and marketing costs are usually much higher than R&D costs (unless it's cutting edge tech) and with this website they can simply organize a profitable low production run without having to pump much money into marketing - additionally there is a small chance the product goes viral and ends up in full-scale production afterwards (in which case the people in the small production run probably paid a bit more then it retails for later on)

Its called a choice.

Both them and the consumer make it and the need to be responcible for it.  

Maybe just maybe the people need to have a god damn brain and make a decision for them selves if something is good or not.  No person none alive not any one should listen to you or your baseless opinion.  

Personally.. I feel I already crowdfunded crap products from Sony like the MiniDisc and memory stick pro.. and duo.. what a waste of money..

that said.. where can I sign up for a new Aibo?

The concept itself is fine, and would be suitable as a platform for small businesses or individuals in order to launch their ideas.

A large company, particularly one with such a strong brand, doing business this way leaves a bad taste in your mouth. They should show more confidence in their products. Have a small department for risky ventures such as these; go into low-rate production to test the waters and go from there.

That scenario really doesn't make sense. Say Sony say 'We won't give you GT7 unless people pledge $10 million", and then they don't raise $10 million (because there isn't many people prepared to crowd fund). End result the game doesn't get made. Who does that help? It doesn't help Sony because thats a massive exclusive that drives people to buy their consoles. And they risk conceding a huge number of GT fans to other racing games which might not be on their console. So GT7 will always be made and funded by Sony, because they need a game like GT7 to exist to sell their consoles. The same applies for other games. 

Then make the votes MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE and let the customers choose to make a DONATION (even though it's still stupid) instead of asking the public to fund the projects ... 

With a big corporation like Sony their are lots of consumers who put faith in them and having that faith misplaced can be dangerous to a company's reputation ...

they just fear about making not enough profit with this investment, a stupid fear as long as they are making smartphones.

I'm genuinely upset at the lack of vision from some people here.

First and foremost, everyone talking about games needs to shut up and actually read the article

Now with that out of the way let me share a little background, I make hardware for a living. I design it from concept to retail, either my own designs from scratch or someone elses ive been paid to make.

In this industry R&D only goes so far, the real hurdle is not the product, its the clueless section head, CEO or assessor who makes the final call on if a product is going to see more, or ANY development funding and even then there is no garuntee that the company will sign off on the product unless theres a clear path from production to sales.

Let me give you an example here.

A company makes some third party lightning cables for iPhone, adds in a cool little feature of weather protection when not in use.
Head of business development for that company approaches a major retailer, major retailer is less interested in the design and features and more interested in the profit margins for a 10k PO.
In this situation, the "cool features" get sidelined and a cheaper version gets produced, priced so that the retailer makes money and the manufacturer makes money, and with any luck will cover the cost to make the thing to begin with, but the end result is the customer ends up with a lower end product missing features it originally had and why? because the retailer wont take the risk on a lower profit margin so in turn the head of business development wont invest the extra money in to the better design.

So many times I have seen amazing products get butchered into mediocre products because retailers wont take a risk on an unproven idea unless the manufacturing company is willing to give an assurance (a guranteed return on their investment even if the product does not sell), unless the manufacturing company is absolutely certain they generally shy away from doing this.

This isnt even limited to just tiny companies either, it goes all the way up the chain and unless you have a strong enough brand that has a degree of assurance that a product will sell regardless (eg, Apple) it never plays out smoothly.

Then theres employees of a company that will come up with a great idea, and R&D staff will think, hey that is pretty awesome, so they put together a presentation on the idea and present it to the head honchos, 80% of the time the head honchos, who are generally clueless businessmen, will turn it down unless its tried and tested.

As such, companies over the years come up with hundreds, even thousands of awesome product ideas which either never make it further than the initial presentation or get as far as an early prototype then get ditched, in favor of tried and tested retail performers.

This leads to a market flooded with clones, copies and unoriginality.

Crowdsourcing product concepts TAKES AWAY MUCH OF THE POWER FOR THE COMPANY TO SAY NO, if a crowdsourced project does extremely well, the CEOs and clueless suits have little reason to turn it down, and we end up with more innovative and unique products.

At the same time, because the product is being crowdsourced, development can be steered by the contributors, features that people actually want end up high on priority lists and we don't end up with pointless crap like the Aibo or Rolly.

Frankly, I think the industry NEEDS crowdsourcing in its development sector, regardless of how small or how large the company attached to it is, I hope MORE companies take this route and take away the descision making from the head honchos and businessmen and puts it squarly in the hands of the people who ultimately are the ones that will be buying the resulting products.

It isnt an exact science of course, and over time a few lemons are going to reach market on the backs of crowdfunding, but at the very least those lemons will have had a chance, along with potential gems, rather than dissapearing into obscurity like thousands upon thousands of product designs which end users would have bent over backwards to own, usually do.

So take that into consideration before jumping on the "ew large companies dont need crowdsourcing money" bandwagon, because doing that ensures that companies continue to push out products that never quite hit the mark and always leave you thinking "its nice but i wish it had x feature or x design, or z color option".

Understand this simple fact, crowdsourcing product development puts YOU in control of the products YOU want to buy.