Tamagotchi 20 Years Anniversary: The Beloved Digital Pet Makes Its Return
20 years ago the iconic Tamagotchi emerged and became a huge international hit and kept hordes of kids and teenagers busy with hatching, feeding, and cleaning up after the virtual pet. Since its initial debut, more than 82 million units were sold worldwide.
The cute gadget was beloved for its attention demanding nature, asking to be fed or played with, while neglect would lead to its certain death. The mission is simple: care for the tiny digital pet that starts out as an egg and slowly grows into a different sort of creature, feed, interact and cleanup, and above it all, don’t let it die!
On the occasion of the 20 years anniversary, the Japanese toy maker, Bandai has released a special anniversary edition of the Tamagotchi. Besides being 20% smaller than the 1997-launched original model, the anniversary edition hasn’t changed much: it’s a colorful oval piece of plastic, with three buttons, a pixelated 16x16 pixels screen, and a ball chain. However, compared to the original, it has less functions.
To be frank, there really is no reasonable cause to purchasing this piece of function-wise very limited and hardware-wise completely outdated gadget if not for nostalgic fondness, and it’s given that your interest in petting the revived Tamagotchi will quickly fade, but then again nostalgia is a beautiful thing and there are dumber ways to spend money than reminiscing on sweet 90's memories.
The Tamagotchi anniversary edition will be available in six different designs and will be sold for $15 USD. It can be preordered online now and will hit stores in limited quantities from early November onwards.