Was the original Tamagotchi only marketed towards girls? It looks like the new one will be available only in purple and pink.
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...
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...
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.
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.
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 :).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pretty much. Girls had Tamagotchi and boys had Digimon.
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.
"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?
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).
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.
IIRC, the boy version was Digimon. Basically the same toy, but you could battle them.
Can still buy the old school versions and they feel very unisex to this day.
Later models seem geared towards younger kids in general.
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
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.