November 23rd will see the release of the “Celebrate Cell Phone Open!!! Tamagotchi Plus” electronic pets in Japan, from none other than original creator Bandai. The price is acceptable at around $20, but the main feature of the new toys is their ability to interface with your (Japanese) mobile phone via infrared. Exactly what this results in I know not, but Bandai has said that “point shopping” to buy your pet new items will be possible, and this will also enable your pet to travel. Why wouldn’t Bandai just integrate the tamagotchi into the phone itself so you just need to download an application instead of buy a different device? Sony Communications did this years ago with a piece of software called “PostPet” (which incidentally also handles email), and it has since become immensely popular.
Read – Press Release [Bandai]
