Name: Bandai Tamagotchi + Color
Category: digital toy
Price: JPY5040
Release date in Japan: November 22, 2008
Remember the Tamagotchi? Billions of digital Tamagotchi "pets" may have lived and died since Bandai released the toy in late 1996, but after all these years the gadget lives on. And now it's going color.
Everyone recalls the Tamagotchi as a mega-hit fad. It's sold tens of millions of units in over 30 countries. It's been seen on TV's "ER" medical drama, banned by school administrators as an in-class distraction, blamed by psychologists for creating "pet loss syndrome", and awarded an Ig Nobel Prize early in its career for "diverting millions of person-hours of work into the husbandry of virtual pets". But the initial explosive popularity caught Bandai off-guard and unprepared to fill demand; the boom ended just as the company ramped up production, and in FY1998 Bandai had to restructure as it sat on tons of unsold Tamagotchis.
While the Tamagotchi didn't keep the world's attention for too long, Bandai has been nurturing it since into a staple product line. There have been countless Tamagotchi versions, spin-off products, video games, cartoons, and so on, while the core toy's virtual world keeps growing in complexity. A key step forward came in 2004: the Tamagotchi Connection added infrared connectivity, letting owners' virtual pets "meet" each other, play games, exchange gifts, and even make tama-babies. The upgrade sparked a modest resurgence for the toy that lasted until another slump in 2007.
Evolution continues on November 22 when Bandai releases the "Tamagotchi + Color", the first toy in the line with a color LCD display. That makes the pets' little world not just prettier, but more informative too: visual indicators of time, season, and weather are much easier to show in color than in black and white, says Bandai, as are richer character expressions. (Weather and season matter, as the pets are scheduled to take outdoor walks to the park and stores in their virtual world.) Owners can also change colors and designs in the pets' rooms. The toy's case will be available in 7 colors.
Not surprisingly, the color version will be a little bigger than earlier models (6.5 cm tall, verses 5.3 for the original), and more power-hungry too: the + Color ditches button batteries for two AAAs. It's also a lot pricier: JPY5040, vs JPY1980 back in 1996.
Will Tamagotchi + Color spark a new generation of schoolkids ignoring teacher to feed a Kuchibatchi? Or spur the original Tamagotchi generation to check up on Memetchi during a boring sales meeting? Stay tuned from late November.
More info (Japanese):
http://tamagotch.channel.or.jp/toy/tama_color/index.html
