Tamagotchi? There's an App for That

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Unfortunately.

It's been nearly 20 years since the Tamagotchi crazy of the early- to mid-90s. However, if you thought the Tamagotchi was dead, you were sorely mistaken. The electronic pet is back and it's just as annoying as ever.

Earlier this month, Bandai announced plans to launch a Tamagotchi smartphone application. Yesterday, the app went live in Google's Play Store. Free to download, the app is 15MB and offers the same functionality of a traditional Tamagotchi in smartphone form. Bandai is calling it Tamagotchi L.I.F.E, which apparently stands for Love Is Fun Everywhere.

We downloaded the app to give it a shot yesterday and were quickly reminded why we never seemed to be able to keep our Tamagotchis alive when we were younger. Having had the app for less than 45 minutes, we were given no fewer than eight notifications informing us that our Tamagotchi was 'calling us.' We couldn't figure out how to satisfy him/her (playing with it seemed to make it happy, but then very, very angry, and it wasn't hungry or dirty or sick). By the time the seventh notification came in, we were pleading with the phone: "What do you want!" Notification number eight came in as we were scrolling through our app settings to uninstall it.

Right now, Tamagotchi L.I.F.E is only available for Android, but iOS users can look forward to their own version soon.

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20 Hide

colinjmatt , February 18, 2013 1:13 PM

We're probably looking at around 512k for the actual pet simulation. The rest will be advertising, tracking and mild forms of spyware aimed at seeing how you use your phone.

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8 Hide

freggo , February 18, 2013 1:07 PM

15MB App ?
Wondering how many MB the original little bugger had :-)
Inflation everywhere.
20 Hide

colinjmatt , February 18, 2013 1:13 PM

We're probably looking at around 512k for the actual pet simulation. The rest will be advertising, tracking and mild forms of spyware aimed at seeing how you use your phone.
-10 Unhide

master_chen , February 18, 2013 1:21 PM

Hmmmm...IMO, entire appeal of TAMAGO (Egg) CHI (Baby Creature, roughly) lost if you use this. People who made this obviously don't know jack about how Asian market and marketing works. AT ALL. I pity these poor bakagaijins.
-5 Hide

fishyfish , February 18, 2013 1:47 PM

Google Store search doesn't find anything called "Tamagotchi L.I.F.E." or "L.I.F.E.", has author of this news checked his sources at all?
5 Hide

Anonymous , February 18, 2013 2:13 PM

OH GOD ITS BACK.

`hypothetical famous last words of a 5th grade teacher before she would commit suicide"
-5 Hide

Vorador2 , February 18, 2013 2:20 PM

No.No.NONOONONONONONO

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
-8 Hide

master_chen , February 18, 2013 2:36 PM

Lulz.
3 Hide

stingstang , February 18, 2013 2:48 PM

master_chenHmmmm...IMO, entire appeal of TAMAGO (Egg) CHI (Baby Creature, roughly) lost if you use this. People who made this obviously don't know jack about how Asian market and marketing works. AT ALL. I pity these poor bakagaijins.

You do know that the same company that made the original game released the app, right?
So no. Not Bakagaijins.
0 Hide

hydac7 , February 18, 2013 2:58 PM

Vorador2No.No.NONOONONONONONONOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I remember when i was a kid in school back in the 90s when these came out , they were a fad , almost all the girls in my class had one , I hated it , they preferred to play with those than hang out with us boys , the girls treated those like they were kids or something , was so happy when it ended
-5 Hide

fat_panda , February 18, 2013 3:14 PM

I still can't believe Ferbie made a come back. Those things were soooo creepy the first time.
1 Hide

kanoobie , February 18, 2013 3:30 PM

Tamagotchi Human Centipede takes care of itself.
1 Hide

blurr91 , February 18, 2013 4:35 PM

I had a lot of dead chickens...
-5 Hide

iniudan , February 18, 2013 5:23 PM

Has long has they don't revive the furbies, I am quite happy. Those thing are freaking hell spawn.
2 Hide

gm0n3y , February 18, 2013 5:44 PM

Now someone just needs to write an app that will automatically take care of your Tamagotchi for you.
1 Hide

eklipz330 , February 18, 2013 6:08 PM

why the hate? i downloaded it three days ago, i was so happy they have it! now to have your own digimon... heh heh heh
1 Hide

Camikazi , February 18, 2013 7:51 PM

iniudanHas long has they don't revive the furbies, I am quite happy. Those thing are freaking hell spawn.

They have already released an updated Furby and they have been trying to make them popular again. This one is even creepier, you can't turn it off (auto off after 1 min of inactivity but what it considers activity who knows) has more expressive LCD eyes, learns to interact with you more, can talk more.
0 Hide

TeraMedia , February 18, 2013 8:43 PM

I should make a Tamagotchi-sitter app. I could charge people perhaps a few cents an hour to watch their T-chis while they are too busy doing something else.