Today in 1996, the first Tamagotchi virtual toys hit the shelfs in Japan. Tamagotchi are a virtual pet that will grow into a number of other tamagotchi as long as you keep them alive long enough for them to get there, and even then they will eventually pass from old age. Even as digital creatures, tamagotchi are not free from the mortality that claims us all.
Speaking of never being able to go back, one of my own personal experiences with Tamagotchi is one tied to lost media. I went through my Tamagotchi phase during the mid 2000's, and the big gimmick they had at the time was that you could connect your virtual pet to a minigame filled website and get a whole second level of game to the toy. That website is no longer in service so that whole feature to the tamagotchi connection line is just gone.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Fun fact! “Tamagotchi” is a portmanteau of “tamago”, meaning egg, and “tomodachi”, meaning friend. English speaking nerds of today may recognize these words from other Japanese cultural imports, namely Nintendo’s Tomodachi Life for 3DS and Sanrio’s “Gudetama”, which also uses the root word “tamago”. In English, you’d call these virtual pets Friegg. Glad we don’t do that.]
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