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.