The first real casualty of the economic crisis has emerged, and it’s a lovable robotic dinosaur. Decreased demand for expensive toys has left Pleo’s creator, Ugobe, wallowing in debt. As a last ditch effort to remain solvent, they’re going to try to auction off the rights to Pleo, but there’s no guarantee that the poor critter will ever be made again.

Pleo has always been a favorite over here at CrunchGear, so we put together a little goodbye tribute video in case the adorable robosaurus is indeed extinct.

It actually seems likely that the rights to make Pleo (and the machinery owned over in China) will be snapped up, but if one of the big toymakers does so, they’re under no pressure to continue production. They might wait for the world economy to recover, but they also might just shelve it, knowing they’ve spoiled any competitors’ hopes of capitalizing on Pleo.

Whatever the case, it’s a sad day indeed.

Videos from previous posts and YouTube. Music is Crosby, Stills, & Nash’s “Might as well have a good time” from Daylight Again. A nice smooth yacht-ballad is what Pleo would have wanted.

[image credit: this blog via GIS]