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Raw egg-citement

The year is 1996. Bandai is unloading 40 million of its egg-shaped electronic Tamagotchi pets to kids and lonely housewives everywhere. If this were a sci-fi movie (or a "South Park" episode), they would link up and take over the world.

Thankfully, back in the technological Stone Age of the mid-’90s, this wasn’t possible. Today, though, the pets are all grown up, and who knows what’s in store? The current Tamagotchi Plus generation can connect through infrared with nearby units, creating “families” of three to five pixelated pets ­­— and the latest version, FamiTama, offers even more connectivity. Users can log on to a website via PC or even cellphone to network nationally now; then, from January, they can also visit the multilingual Tama Expo homepage to hypothetically meet and even marry other children's Tamagotchi.

We say “hypothetically” because even with a decade and a half of computing under our belts, we had no idea how to approach the rainbow-colored Flash website, which we suspect was designed to ward off adult intruders. Bandai has now sold a total of 72 million units worldwide, and is still milking the franchise. The first full-length Tamagotchi feature film, "Eiga de Tojo: Tamagotchi Uchu de Maigotchi" ("Appearing on Film: Tamagotchi Lost in Space"), hit theaters on Dec 15. 

Tamagotchi Plus, Bandai
Three models available nationwide for 2,940 yen each (3,990 yen with Japan-only DVD).
http://www.tamagotch.channel.or.jp

December 24, 2007

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