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LEGO is doing really good by offering free software-, firmware-, and hardware developer kits for their stuff. Their official firmware is even open source under a GNU license. You can actually view the electric schematics for the MINDSTORMS hardware. The resulting community support for various custom sensors and languages is awesome. They are also being a good internet citizen by allowing downloading without any account registration.

https://education.lego.com/en-us/support/mindstorms-ev3/deve...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms#Programming_la...

What's absurd is that the Mindstorms EV3 is $350 and just the CPU brick is $190.

Given that since Mindstorms first came out, systems-on-a-chip like Raspberry PI and Arduino are down to $10 or $20 dollars, why hasn't Lego brought its Mindstorm prices down?

I loved, loved, loved Lego as a child and my kids love them still (even my 15-year old) but their prices reflect Scandinavian economics and not middle-class U.S. economics. I've come to dread walking down the Lego aisle at the toy store knowing that I'll have to drop $120 on a non-trivial set. I can't stand the thought that we live in a world where Lego bricks are an elitist toy.

So, does Lego really believe that if I want my kid to play with robotics outside of school, I want to spend as much as an iPad or Chromebook for a one-chip microcontroller? That's just price gouging.

China is coming on that market too, with Xiaomi Mitu ( cf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd0tjYW_-1I ). It's only available in China for now.
Before I became a parent, I didn't understand Lego. Now I love Lego. My kids love Lego. We'll spend an hour at the Lego store every few months filling up a bucket of parts and spend hours piecing different inventions together at home in quiet focused play.

The only complaint I have about Lego is the price. The kits are very expensive, even the basic kits that don't feature licensed superheroes or star wars. A little police truck or car is $20. My understanding is that the expense comes from the precision with which the bricks must me manufactured, but $160 for a robotics kit is still prohibitively expensive for many people.

That said, this kit does appear awesome.

You can save a fortune by buying it second hand, basic bricks in particular are worth almost nothing on the second hand market.
Introduction video by TechCrunch at CES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uueBgpxOGzY