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Interestingly, seeing this made me Google Tamagotchi, thinking my daughter might like an old school Tamagotchi. Apparently, a new “Tamagotchi Pix”[0] product is

by wincy 6y ago

Interestingly, seeing this made me Google Tamagotchi, thinking my daughter might like an old school Tamagotchi. Apparently, a new “Tamagotchi Pix”[0] product is releasing July 1st. It’s $60 and has a camera for some reason. Was the original Tamagotchi only marketed towards girls? It looks like the new one will be available only in purple and pink. [0] https://tamagotchi.com/product/tamagotchi-pix/ https://tamagotchi.com/product/tamagotchi-pix/

pndy 6y ago
From personal experience I remember that majority of kids had these here in Poland in the end of 90s and early 2000s but the quality of tama egg as we called these (not knowing it was a tautology), varied. Some richer kids had the original tamagotchi while most of us got bootleg devices sold on the market by merchants from Ukraine (who also were selling bootleg copies of SNES along with cartridges - majority of these were "9999 in One" games, sometimes even taking shape of original Playstation) or in newspaper, toy stores. Bootleg copies weren't lasting long - the common issue was with ZEBRA connectors on LCD that were prone to failing if device was dropped and that happen a lot. I had luck to find some Bandai branded tamagotchi but now I doubt it was original - I did tried to look for any info about it but no luck. Despite if it was original or not, we had fun - two classmates were really happy about their 28 in 1 type of devices, where they both pick gray aliens. Later on I had some bootleg 8 in 1 device that I really liked. We also were wearing these on ribbons around neck instead of pockets, since devices had a clock feature. Edit: forgot to mention that there were also dating-sim tamagotchi-like device [1], not sure but probably aiming at teenagers/adults and one that had a more "natural" looking pictures of baby/kid [2] [1] - https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W8DZLytNPQw/Ujv5_PYCoUI/AAAAAAAAChg/mEV1G_qmKrM/s1600/rikou+no+koibito.jpg https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W8DZLytNPQw/Ujv5_PYCoUI/AAAAAAAAC... [2] - https://orig10.deviantart.net/e9bc/f/2017/221/7/f/babybye2_edited_by_tamagotchiocean-dbjhcuf.png https://orig10.deviantart.net/e9bc/f/2017/221/7/f/babybye2_e...
msrenee 6y ago
They've got blue and green as well on that website. $60 and it's got a camera though? Hell no.
- wincy 6y ago
  Right, my mistake, I looked at the Amazon page which has preorders for pink and purple, but didn’t want to link that so I instead linked to the official page.
eh9 6y ago
Blue and green are right under those colors.
- wincy 6y ago
  Ah the Amazon US page is only showing the preorders for Pink and Purple.
Shank 6y ago
Try the Tamagotchi On instead, which that site calls the “original.” It’s not, but it looks like it’s better for you. See: https://tamaon.tamagotchi.com/products/ https://tamaon.tamagotchi.com/products/ Edit: I also see the "original" for $20 on Amazon, which looks like it's actually the original? See: https://smile.amazon.com/Tamagotchi-42873-Original-Sky/dp/B085W8DCPT https://smile.amazon.com/Tamagotchi-42873-Original-Sky/dp/B0...
- ericlewis 6y ago
  If you have it around you Target sells the OG tamas, the newer ones are fun but I don’t much care for needing to transfer them to my phone to play games. The self contained aspect was enjoyable to me.
bogwog 6y ago
> Was the original Tamagotchi only marketed towards girls? It looks like the new one will be available only in purple and pink. IIRC, the boy version was Digimon. Basically the same toy, but you could battle them.
- ericlewis 6y ago
  Unisex but over time skewed towards what seem like a more feminine market. Can still buy the old school versions and they feel very unisex to this day. Later models seem geared towards younger kids in general.
- Izkata 6y ago
  No, the Digivices [0] were a completely different toy: It lacked the caring aspect and used a pedometer to make progress in traveling the world, where on occasion you'd get an alert about encountering an enemy digimon. If you ignored it your Digimon would be injured and you'd have to heal it. In addition, to get in on the craze, other companies made their own products that played identically to tamagotchis. Tiger Electronics had the Giga Pet brand [1], for example, from which I had the alien. Quick edit: Ah wait maybe you meant these [2], which were before the Digivices. I never had one, don't know if they were more like tamagotchis. [0] https://wikimon.net/Digivice_Toy https://wikimon.net/Digivice_Toy [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_Pet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_Pet [2] https://digimon.fandom.com/wiki/Digimon_Virtual_Pet https://digimon.fandom.com/wiki/Digimon_Virtual_Pet
  - ryukafalz 6y ago
    >don't know if they were more like tamagotchis. They were and are! (They're still releasing new models, at least in Japan.) But yes, the Digimon v-pets were definitely marketed as basically "tamagotchi for boys" and the gameplay is very similar.
  - dugditches 6y ago
    They were basically battling tamagotchi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzMB5y8rOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzMB5y8rOw
aphextron 6y ago
>Was the original Tamagotchi only marketed towards girls? Pretty much. Girls had Tamagotchi and boys had Digimon.
- ericlewis 6y ago
  I don’t agree with that. At the height of tama mania everyone had one. Usually, digi was a more complicated knock off that fit a different niche of people who like battling Pokémon. Edit: I had both, but digi personally wasn’t all that fun and everyone did tama because it was mellow and easy. We played Pokémon if we wanted to battle.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    It also came out later? I think I had a tamagotchi in 1994 or 1995 - I think digimon didn’t show up until a year or two later.
    - ericlewis 6y ago
      I think tama was 96 and digi was like 98 or 99.
  - ryukafalz 6y ago
    >Usually, digi was a more complicated knock off that fit a different niche of people who like battling Pokémon. "Knock-off" is a strange description for a product made by the same company as the Tamagotchi. Can they make knock-offs of their own product?
    - ericlewis 6y ago
      Heh, I guess. It seemed inferior hence the knock off bit.
- p1necone 6y ago
  Digimon was pretty much a Tamagotchi marketed heavily towards boys, but the original Tamagotchi was fairly gender neutral - I remember when they were big when I was a kid plenty of my male friends had one.
Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
There are several Tamagotchi like apps, In Ubuntu Touch(UBPorts) Openstore there's Sakawochi where one can grow fishes[1]. I'm not telling you should get UBPorts for this, but this was one of the Tamgagotchi like apps I tried and maybe an old phone with UBPorts for this app would be appropriate for kids. [1]https://open-store.io/app/sakawochi.wendigosoft https://open-store.io/app/sakawochi.wendigosoft
freetime2 6y ago
> and has a camera for some reason. There is a new Pokemon game coming out called "Pokemon Snap" where apparently the whole game consists of traveling through the game world and taking photos of Pokemon. Similarly there is a feature in the Pokemon Go game where you can take photos of your Pokemon in AR. I just cannot even fathom who this would appeal to, but apparently there must be a demand for it. Are people sharing these photos on social media or something? That's the only thing I can think of that would make sense.
- p1necone 6y ago
  It's a sequel to a game that came out in 1999 which was pretty successful (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Snap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Snap). The focus of the game is taking photos of Pokemon, but it's more involved than just that. It's really a puzzle game - where you need to work out what to do to get certain Pokemon to come out, or get them to do certain things to get better photos. (Getting Pikachu to surf is a stand out moment). You can make any game sound pointless by describing it with only surface level detail like this - "Tetris is stupid, you just move squares to the bottom of the screen until they disappear", "Mario is stupid, you just jump up and down while moving to the right" and so on.
  - freetime2 6y ago
    Honest question - would you say the gameplay of Pokemon Snap is as good as Mario 64 (which came out for the same system as Pokemon Snap) or Tetris?
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      "Gameplay" is not a scalar, and it's not a function of game alone - it's a function of the game and the player. Never played Pokémon Snap, but if the gameplay resembles even a little the photography side-game of Beyond Good and Evil, or Subnautica, I'd probably find it fun to an extent. And beating Tetris gameplay, for me, is a pretty low bar. About the only thing I liked about it was the memorable music - as a kid, I never had patience to become good at it. The racing game on the same "100-in-1" handheld, now, that was another thing :).
craftzdog 6y ago
There are various models released in Japan: https://toy.bandai.co.jp/series/tamagotchi/ https://toy.bandai.co.jp/series/tamagotchi/
- pndy 6y ago
  Evangelion-themed tamagotchi is the weirdest thing but perhaps also a good marketing product - tho, not sure how the series holds in Japan nowadays
  - craftzdog 6y ago
    I'm a Japanese and I haven't seen kids playing Tamagotchi for years.
hulahoof 6y ago
I remember the Tamagotchi being for both sexes, but popularity among males at my school dropped after the release of Digimon,which was heavily marketed to males due to the 'battle' aspect
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by wincy 6y ago

pndy 6y ago

From personal experience I remember that majority of kids had these here in Poland in the end of 90s and early 2000s but the quality of tama egg as we called these (not knowing it was a tautology), varied. Some richer kids had the original tamagotchi while most of us got bootleg devices sold on the market by merchants from Ukraine (who also were selling bootleg copies of SNES along with cartridges - majority of these were "9999 in One" games, sometimes even taking shape of original Playstation) or in newspaper, toy stores. Bootleg copies weren't lasting long - the common issue was with ZEBRA connectors on LCD that were prone to failing if device was dropped and that happen a lot. I had luck to find some Bandai branded tamagotchi but now I doubt it was original - I did tried to look for any info about it but no luck. Despite if it was original or not, we had fun - two classmates were really happy about their 28 in 1 type of devices, where they both pick gray aliens. Later on I had some bootleg 8 in 1 device that I really liked. We also were wearing these on ribbons around neck instead of pockets, since devices had a clock feature. Edit: forgot to mention that there were also dating-sim tamagotchi-like device [1], not sure but probably aiming at teenagers/adults and one that had a more "natural" looking pictures of baby/kid [2] [1] - https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W8DZLytNPQw/Ujv5_PYCoUI/AAAAAAAAChg/mEV1G_qmKrM/s1600/rikou+no+koibito.jpg https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W8DZLytNPQw/Ujv5_PYCoUI/AAAAAAAAC... [2] - https://orig10.deviantart.net/e9bc/f/2017/221/7/f/babybye2_edited_by_tamagotchiocean-dbjhcuf.png https://orig10.deviantart.net/e9bc/f/2017/221/7/f/babybye2_e...

msrenee 6y ago

They've got blue and green as well on that website. $60 and it's got a camera though? Hell no.

wincy 6y ago
Right, my mistake, I looked at the Amazon page which has preorders for pink and purple, but didn’t want to link that so I instead linked to the official page.

eh9 6y ago

Blue and green are right under those colors.

wincy 6y ago
Ah the Amazon US page is only showing the preorders for Pink and Purple.

Shank 6y ago

Try the Tamagotchi On instead, which that site calls the “original.” It’s not, but it looks like it’s better for you. See: https://tamaon.tamagotchi.com/products/ https://tamaon.tamagotchi.com/products/ Edit: I also see the "original" for $20 on Amazon, which looks like it's actually the original? See: https://smile.amazon.com/Tamagotchi-42873-Original-Sky/dp/B085W8DCPT https://smile.amazon.com/Tamagotchi-42873-Original-Sky/dp/B0...

ericlewis 6y ago
If you have it around you Target sells the OG tamas, the newer ones are fun but I don’t much care for needing to transfer them to my phone to play games. The self contained aspect was enjoyable to me.

bogwog 6y ago

> Was the original Tamagotchi only marketed towards girls? It looks like the new one will be available only in purple and pink. IIRC, the boy version was Digimon. Basically the same toy, but you could battle them.

ericlewis 6y ago
Unisex but over time skewed towards what seem like a more feminine market. Can still buy the old school versions and they feel very unisex to this day. Later models seem geared towards younger kids in general.
Izkata 6y ago
No, the Digivices [0] were a completely different toy: It lacked the caring aspect and used a pedometer to make progress in traveling the world, where on occasion you'd get an alert about encountering an enemy digimon. If you ignored it your Digimon would be injured and you'd have to heal it. In addition, to get in on the craze, other companies made their own products that played identically to tamagotchis. Tiger Electronics had the Giga Pet brand [1], for example, from which I had the alien. Quick edit: Ah wait maybe you meant these [2], which were before the Digivices. I never had one, don't know if they were more like tamagotchis. [0] https://wikimon.net/Digivice_Toy https://wikimon.net/Digivice_Toy [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_Pet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_Pet [2] https://digimon.fandom.com/wiki/Digimon_Virtual_Pet https://digimon.fandom.com/wiki/Digimon_Virtual_Pet
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  >don't know if they were more like tamagotchis. They were and are! (They're still releasing new models, at least in Japan.) But yes, the Digimon v-pets were definitely marketed as basically "tamagotchi for boys" and the gameplay is very similar.
- dugditches 6y ago
  They were basically battling tamagotchi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzMB5y8rOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzMB5y8rOw

aphextron 6y ago

>Was the original Tamagotchi only marketed towards girls? Pretty much. Girls had Tamagotchi and boys had Digimon.

ericlewis 6y ago
I don’t agree with that. At the height of tama mania everyone had one. Usually, digi was a more complicated knock off that fit a different niche of people who like battling Pokémon. Edit: I had both, but digi personally wasn’t all that fun and everyone did tama because it was mellow and easy. We played Pokémon if we wanted to battle.
- fossuser 6y ago
  It also came out later? I think I had a tamagotchi in 1994 or 1995 - I think digimon didn’t show up until a year or two later.
  - ericlewis 6y ago
    I think tama was 96 and digi was like 98 or 99.
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  >Usually, digi was a more complicated knock off that fit a different niche of people who like battling Pokémon. "Knock-off" is a strange description for a product made by the same company as the Tamagotchi. Can they make knock-offs of their own product?
  - ericlewis 6y ago
    Heh, I guess. It seemed inferior hence the knock off bit.
p1necone 6y ago
Digimon was pretty much a Tamagotchi marketed heavily towards boys, but the original Tamagotchi was fairly gender neutral - I remember when they were big when I was a kid plenty of my male friends had one.

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago

There are several Tamagotchi like apps, In Ubuntu Touch(UBPorts) Openstore there's Sakawochi where one can grow fishes[1]. I'm not telling you should get UBPorts for this, but this was one of the Tamgagotchi like apps I tried and maybe an old phone with UBPorts for this app would be appropriate for kids. [1]https://open-store.io/app/sakawochi.wendigosoft https://open-store.io/app/sakawochi.wendigosoft

freetime2 6y ago

> and has a camera for some reason. There is a new Pokemon game coming out called "Pokemon Snap" where apparently the whole game consists of traveling through the game world and taking photos of Pokemon. Similarly there is a feature in the Pokemon Go game where you can take photos of your Pokemon in AR. I just cannot even fathom who this would appeal to, but apparently there must be a demand for it. Are people sharing these photos on social media or something? That's the only thing I can think of that would make sense.

p1necone 6y ago
It's a sequel to a game that came out in 1999 which was pretty successful (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Snap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Snap). The focus of the game is taking photos of Pokemon, but it's more involved than just that. It's really a puzzle game - where you need to work out what to do to get certain Pokemon to come out, or get them to do certain things to get better photos. (Getting Pikachu to surf is a stand out moment). You can make any game sound pointless by describing it with only surface level detail like this - "Tetris is stupid, you just move squares to the bottom of the screen until they disappear", "Mario is stupid, you just jump up and down while moving to the right" and so on.
- freetime2 6y ago
  Honest question - would you say the gameplay of Pokemon Snap is as good as Mario 64 (which came out for the same system as Pokemon Snap) or Tetris?
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    "Gameplay" is not a scalar, and it's not a function of game alone - it's a function of the game and the player. Never played Pokémon Snap, but if the gameplay resembles even a little the photography side-game of Beyond Good and Evil, or Subnautica, I'd probably find it fun to an extent. And beating Tetris gameplay, for me, is a pretty low bar. About the only thing I liked about it was the memorable music - as a kid, I never had patience to become good at it. The racing game on the same "100-in-1" handheld, now, that was another thing :).

craftzdog 6y ago

There are various models released in Japan: https://toy.bandai.co.jp/series/tamagotchi/ https://toy.bandai.co.jp/series/tamagotchi/

pndy 6y ago
Evangelion-themed tamagotchi is the weirdest thing but perhaps also a good marketing product - tho, not sure how the series holds in Japan nowadays
- craftzdog 6y ago
  I'm a Japanese and I haven't seen kids playing Tamagotchi for years.

hulahoof 6y ago

I remember the Tamagotchi being for both sexes, but popularity among males at my school dropped after the release of Digimon,which was heavily marketed to males due to the 'battle' aspect

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]