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/AAAAAAAAC...

[2] - https://orig10.deviantart.net/e9bc/f/2017/221/7/f/babybye2_e...

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/

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/B0...

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.

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

> 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.

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).

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.

It also had a competitiveness to it by using a points system in photos, it was quite clever and it rated photos based on a wide set of criteria, including pose, framing, you'd get multipliers for having groups on the frame, it was quite unique for its time.

I loved that game, I'm glad they are coming out with a sequel but I outgrew Pokemon as the newer generations came and I am probably not as interested in the sequel, might try it out for the nostalgia factor.

Pokemon Snap is truly a testament to Nintendo's creativity in coming up with innovative gameplay, it leveraged their new 3D system in a cool way back then.

> It also had a competitiveness to it by using a points system in photos

And to top that off, there was an arcade version of the game (or possibly just the normal game in arcade stand, not sure anymore). We had one in the local Blockbuster, so kids could do a quick run while their parents were looking for a movie.

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?

Pokemon Snap has a lot of depth below the facade. It's an on-rails type game where your job is to take high quality photographs of Pokemon as you venture through the zones that game offers.

Crucially you cannot stop the cart you're on, it trudges forward at a mostly static pace through the level. This means you have to run through zones a couple times to learn the timings for certain pokemon to appear. At some point you unlock apples (lures) and rocks (activators) which you can use to influence the movements that pokemon make through those zones.

It culminates in things like seeing a Magikarp early on in a river rapids level, lining up your shot perfectly to hit it with a stone so it flies into a waterfall, that allows it to evolve and you'll want to get your camera pointed up for the dramatic moment it bursts back out through the waterfall. You get extra points for things like the pokemon being centered in the shot, them facing the camera, making specific movements, rare happenings (like evolutions, or using moves), etc.

So I'd say so, yeah. It lacks the grandiose appeal that Mario 64 had at the time but I'd say it beats out Tetris no matter what way you look at it.

I'd agree. Pokemon snap (N64) was a really awesome game, and I've never seen anything like it since. The really important bit is that it's not random at all. Everything is pre-scripted, and it's a puzzle to manipulate the game state to discover secret photo opportunities. Short, but highly memorable.

Back in the day you could take your cartridge to a blockbuster and print out your in game photos too (or something like that). That was the coolest thing in existence.

The new one looks like a pretty faithful sequel, even, pointlessly, drawing on some of the canon from the first game. I think it will great.

"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 :).

> 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

At first I thought you were joking as if we were in the 90s again with this tamagotchi thread. People were equally confused by the original Pokémon snap, they said the exact same thing as you. Originally, kids were disappointed that the first 3D Pokémon game was a photography game, but it ended up being a memorable hit.

I played the hell out of that when I was 9 years old.

Nope, not joking. And I honestly wasn't trying to bash the game - I just watched some game play videos the other day trying to get a sense of whether it would make a good gift for my son, and didn't get it at all.

I had written it off, but I am tempted now to get it for my son (who adores Pokemon) and see if he likes it. Admittedly there are a lot of things I don't "get" until I see them through the eyes of a 6 year old.

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

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

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.

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

Evangelion-themed tamagotchi is the weirdest thing but perhaps also a good marketing product - tho, not sure how the series holds in Japan nowadays

I'm a Japanese and I haven't seen kids playing Tamagotchi for years.

Blue and green are right under those colors.

Ah the Amazon US page is only showing the preorders for Pink and Purple.

>Was the original Tamagotchi only marketed towards girls?

Pretty much. Girls had Tamagotchi and boys had Digimon.

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.

>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?

Heh, I guess. It seemed inferior hence the knock off bit.

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.

I think tama was 96 and digi was like 98 or 99.

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.

Not sure why this is downvoted. Wikipedia says that Tamagotchi was initally marketed exclusively to teenage girls, whereas Digimon -- made by the same creators -- was deliberately aimed at the male audience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagotchi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digimon

That was in Japan though.

By the time Digimon arrived, the Tamagotchi hype had already subsided a bit (at least here in Germany). And while I knew more girls with one than boys, there were several boys who did (including myself).

Both situations can be true at the same time. IIRC, Tamagotchi were a big hit where I live (Poland), I remember wanting to get one, playing with one someone had, and that it was discussed on a news program the other day - and popularity seemed gender-netural too. Everyone was fascinated with the new digital toy (well, kids were; parents not so much). Digimon came much later, past the popularity wave - and the only person I ever knew who had one (and still has it, and it still works) was my sister.

Apparently the Digimon device had a bunch of "social" features - multiple devices could talk to each other (don't remember if it was contact or infrared) - but I think she never met anyone else to test it with.

> 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.

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

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_Pet

[2] https://digimon.fandom.com/wiki/Digimon_Virtual_Pet

>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.

They were basically battling tamagotchi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzMB5y8rOw

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.