Tamagotchi, the popular handheld virtual reality pet game from the 90s is back. Bandai, the maker of the beloved toy, is bringing back six of the original digital pets that the children of that decade have learned to love.
As Mashable noted, Bandai made a few distinguishable changes to the original design of the toy. The Tamagotchi still sports the egg shape, has three buttons at the bottom part and still has the short chain attached at the top. Also, the characters still look like how they did 20 years ago thanks to Bandai's decision to keep the low-resolution graphics. The only differences are the new colors of the eggs, the altered shape of the screen and the smaller size of the toy itself. The original Tamagotchi has a more rectangular LCD display than the new one. More importantly, the old one is almost twice as large as the new version. However, its smaller frame did not deter fans from quickly swooping the new Tamagotchis up from stores. The Verge reported that the new Tamagotchis are available in Japan for 1,920 yen. That is roughly equivalent to $17 each.
The six new Tamagotchi toys were released in commemoration of the toy's 20th year in the United States and Europe. The first Tamagotchis were actually launched in 1996 in Japan but reached American and European shores a year later. The virtual pets quickly became popular upon their release that some schools had to ban children from bringing them over.
More than 80 million Tamagotchis were sold all over the world by 2010. The name of the keychain pet game comes from the word "tamago" which means "egg" and the English word "watch". With the re-release of Tamagotchi, Bandai joins the likes of Nintendo, Kodak, and Atari which have gone back to the past to get back some of their lost lusters.
