New Tamagotchi Returns For 20th Anniversary, Releases In America Next Month

Bandai America announced today that new Tamagotchis will be returning to the United Stated next month. The company will only be rolling out a limited supply of Tamagotchis to stores worldwide to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the virtual pet game.

The new Tamagotchi has Nov. 5 release date and is priced at $14.99.

For the unfamiliar, a Tamagotchi is a small egg-shaped handheld device that houses a digital pet which users must take care of. Users must play with their Tamagotchi pet, feed it and clean after it. It was pretty big in the ‘90s and now it's coming back with a new mini version with six designs from the original 1996 version, and each will have six characters to choose from.

“There’s a huge trend now with ’90s nostalgia, so it fits right in with what we’re seeing happening in pop culture,” vice president of marketing and brand management at Bandai America Liz Grampp told VentureBeat’s GamesBeat. “And then the other reason is, we made an announcement from our Japan headquarters that we were re-releasing Tamagotchi in Japan, and we got such a huge outpouring of fan demand and adoration that it just reinforced our decision that now was the time to bring it back to the U.S.”

Tamagotchi first launched in Japan in 1996, but it wasn’t until 1997 that the handheld device arrived in the U.S. Bandai says it was able to sell 82 million Tamagotchis during its entire lifetime.

It’s clear that Bandai recognizes the value of nostalgia in today’s pop culture. Old movie franchises are being rebooted, TV shows like Netflix’s “Stranger Things” are bringing ‘80s nostalgia and old video game consoles are returning in some form or another. It makes sense that Tamagotchi would return for its 20th anniversary considering the huge impact it had way back when.

“I definitely think there will be a huge millennial engagement. It’s something you grew up with. It’s iconic,” Grampp said. “But I also think those same millennials will introduce that to the kids in their life, because it’s so much fun. The gameplay is enduring, even if the delivery is a little bit retro, with the pixelated style.”

Engadget says the 20th anniversary Tamagotchi is 20 percent smaller than the original 1996/1997 device. The new version is only 1.5 inches tall and 1.25 inches wide. It can easily fit in any pocket and it even has a keyring if users want to use it as a keychain.

Like the original, the mini Tamagotchi still features three buttons that users need to press to take care of their virtual pets. Since this new Tamagotchi is smaller, the screen is smaller, too. The original had a 32 x 16 screen, while this new one has a 16 x 16 screen. This makes interactions with the virtual pet a bit more limited, but the basics are still there. Users will have to feed it, play with it, clean up after it and make sure it doesn’t die.

The name of the game is to pay attention to it and make sure to never neglect the virtual pet. This of course will be a real challenge today considering there are already dozens of other digital services that can distract people from taking care of their Tamagotchis, as pointed out by Gizmodo.