I think it's an impressive demo of technology, but as a product I don't see the point. It looks like something that will be fun for 10 minutes.
People old enough to understand the technology will think its cool. Kids who grew up on video games will think its boring, and they'll just wind up playing with the cars like matchbox cars and they'll just wind up broken the day the box is opened!
I think a bunch of you aren't understanding just how sophisticated these little cars are.
I think that's pretty much the issue. It is clear from the comments in this thread that some people don't understand what's REALLY going on under the hood. "So what, it's just cars going around a track." Well, no, it's WAY WAY more than that. I did my Master's thesis on machine learning and my fourth year engineering project was on a team of people working with an autonomous robotic vehicle. So I get what's going on under the hood and it's VERY impressive to me that they were able to package this in a complete real-world, nuts-and-bolts product. As someone earlier in the thread said, "iOS beat Google to self-driving cars!"
But on the other hand, I'm just not sure how fun that game will be and how successful it will be as a consumer product. Imagine Ford released a new vehicle that could only be self-driven to a few specific locations. On the one hand, it would be an incredible breakthrough in technology. On the other hand, how many of us would actually buy one?
Maybe they don't care though. I suspect they are so enthusiastic about the research and the potential behind the toy that they're going to charge ahead and keep on researching and experimenting and developing this technology. Selling toys is just a welcome side business. I'm very intrigued to see where this might lead in the next few years.