The apps remind me a little of Tamagotchi, the hit Japanese digital pet phenomenon.
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Unlike some other technological manifestations, the Tamagotchi is not seen as threatening in any way.
Stripped of its novelty value, the Tamagotchi is, after all, just another electronic game.
Tamagotchi factories, frantic though they were throughout the summer, could soon be standing idle.
To keep demand up, the Tamagotchi, like the Barbie doll, continually emerges in new colors and designs.
The site also features Coleman performing a rap song, and a Gary Coleman-style tamagotchi (a computer-animated "pet").
In Japan, where the craze started, youngsters have been dispatching their Tamagotchi to the big hen-house in the sky.
Our next stop was the Tamagotchi, that cloying virtual pet from Japan that needed constant love and attention to grow.
Bandai, a Japanese toy company, made millions of dollars by transferring the precepts of pet-keeping to the electronic world with tamagotchi.
The Tamagotchi challenge is to raise a liquid-crystal-display chick that needs to be "fed, " cleaned up and disciplined at odd intervals.
Unlike the company's traditional successes, the Tamagotchi is not a role-playing character but a gadget you could hang on a keyring.
So, despite the great popularity of the Tamagotchi, many millions have to be sold in order to make even a modest profit.
Later, when the Tamagotchi (or any other species of virtual pet) makes a demand, the nanny goes through the routine it has learned.
Unlike, say, a Tamagotchi (or, you know, a real animal), Furby won't die if you don't feed it -- though it may get cranky.
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Tamagotchi pets are well past their prime and the new WonderSwan, its great hope and a Gameboy look-a-like, has not yet proved a hit.
My children were so obsessed that they had their baby sitter also sit the Tamagotchi when they were off taking ice-skating lessons, or whatever.
"The idea was to base the gameplay on the original Tamagotchi that everyone knows and loves, " said Shin Ueno, chief marketing officer at Sync Beatz.
In a step beyond the virtual pet Tamagotchi, computer simulations like the PlayStation game Tokimeki Memorial provide the lovelorn with the experience of dating a girl.
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Upon initial inspection of this Korean contraption, you could easily find yourself mistaking it for a Tamagotchi, but thankfully this egg-shaped gizmo plays a more productive role.
Quite serious discussions have taken place on the Internet about whether a Tamagotchi has a personality that can develop with experience (the Net is full of nutty people).
Best of all, there are no draining squabbles over Tamagotchi-rearing.
The brainchild of two British design companies, the nanny is shaped like an egg cup: slide the toy in, and it takes over, using tiny motors to help it press the Tamagotchi's buttons.
While there have been a few Tamagotchi clones available for mobile devices, this marks the first official Tamagotchi app to come from Bandai, which has released updated versions of the toy since the first Tamagotchi hatched 16 years ago.
应用推荐