Tamagotchi to return as iPhone and Android app


Recommended Posts

Tamagotchi to return as iPhone and Android app

The Tamagotchi, an electronic virtual pet that became a craze in the 1990s, is to return as an iPhone and Android app.

tamaorig_2474626b.jpg

Japanese toy and video games maker Bandai has announced that Tamagotchi L.i.f.e. will soon be available to download from GooglePlay and the Apple Store.

The first Tamagotchi, a small plastic toy on a keychain with a screen displaying rudimentary graphics, was released in Japan in 1996.

Players would see their virtual pet hatch onscreen, and then would have to look after it by remembering to press buttons at regular intervals for feeding time, bed time and so forth.

The game went on to sell more than 78 million units worldwide.

The new app will include a ?Retro Mode?, which offers features similar to the original game, as well as more advanced options and related mini games.

"The original Tamagotchi was first released 16 years ago and took the world by storm. Everyone had a Tamagotchi and loved taking care of their digital pets," Bandai said in a statement.

"The new Tamagotchi app will feature the same gameplay you know and love with a number of exciting new features."

They have not given a date for the release, only saying that it will be available ?soon?.

The word Tamagotchi is made from combining ?tamago?, the Japanese word for egg, with the English word ?watch?.

L.i.f.e stands for ?love is fun everywhere?, according to the company blog.

In case that needs further explanation, Bandai adds: ?Fans who grew up with Tamagotchi are today, positive, assured, intrepid, cooperative and empowering ? when you factor in its modern-day update with a trendsetting focus, you?ll understand what Tamagotchi L.i.f.e. is all about.

Source

I've tried a couple of times to find a tamagotchi app for Android, but none of them seem to capture the imagination in the same way that the original devices did for me.

I especially like the idea of "retro mode." Expanding the original devices functions by way of mini games is fine, but if I can get the simplicity of the original devices without the mini games then I'll be a happy chappy.

I never once owned an official Tamagotchi. When i was younger i had no money so had to make do with the knock off ones. Usually better as they have more options, but break easier.

First one i had was a nano puppy, it fell down the back of a radiator in the house and i couldn't be bothered to get it so it died. Probably why i wasn't allowed a really puppy. :laugh:

I bought a legit Bandai Tamagotchi first gen off ebay w/ box and instructions few months back for 25$. I still haven't opened it yet. Brought back memories, just haven't had the time to dump my time into it like I did the ones I had as a kid.

I've tried a couple of times to find a tamagotchi app for Android, but none of them seem to capture the imagination in the same way that the original devices did for me.

It's not that they're not good. It's just you getting older.

Too old for these kind of things now.

Im surprised there wasnt one already? After all this time I had assumed there would be, would have funded the development of this if that was the case. Kids are suckers for these, maybe throw in some pet battles with your mates, profit $$

Im surprised there wasnt one already? After all this time I had assumed there would be, would have funded the development of this if that was the case. Kids are suckers for these, maybe throw in some pet battles with your mates, profit $$

You got ton of that **** on the android market. In form of cats, dogs, barbie girls, real girls ("virtual girlfriends"), farm animals and even Warwick Davis :huh:

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • GitHub removes manual model selection from Copilot free and student plans by Karthik Mudaliar GitHub is removing the ability to manually select an AI model from its Copilot Free and Student plans, making its automatic routing system the default and only way to choose a model. This means users on these tiers will no longer be able to deliberately select a particular OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or Microsoft model for a task. In its announcement, GitHub said Copilot Auto will dynamically choose what it considers the best model for each request. Free and Student accounts will retain access to models from multiple families, although the available selection will continue to depend on the restrictions attached to each plan. GitHub did not identify a fixed pool of models that Auto will always use, and its documentation warns that model availability can change over time. GitHub describes Auto as more than a random fallback system. On supported surfaces, its task-optimization technology evaluates the complexity of a request alongside real-time information about model health and availability. Straightforward prompts can be routed to faster and less expensive models, while more demanding coding tasks may be sent to higher-cost reasoning models. The company says this approach should reduce rate limiting, latency, and failed requests. Auto generally selects one model along natural prompt-caching boundaries rather than repeatedly switching models during a session, as GitHub found that mid-session changes increased costs without producing sufficient improvements in output quality. Users can still check which model generated a response. In Copilot Chat, the information appears when hovering over an answer, while Copilot CLI and the Copilot cloud agent display the selected model alongside their output. Auto is available in Copilot Chat, Copilot CLI, and the cloud agent, with the exact implementation and release status varying between supported development environments. The latest restriction follows several months of adjustments to Copilot’s individual plans. GitHub temporarily halted new Pro, Pro+, and Student subscriptions in April as it sought to manage demand and service reliability. It later introduced token-based billing and began gradually reopening individual-plan registrations on June 17. Alongside the picker change, GitHub is retiring the “Preview” label from Microsoft-developed models. It argues that the label is no longer necessary because Auto handles model routing and models are continuously updated behind the scenes.
    • Look up 'inflation' kid. Ask an AI for the numbers between both games.
    • Google reportedly set to lose two key Gemini and DeepMind researchers to Anthropic by Karthik Mudaliar Google is reportedly preparing to lose two more prominent artificial intelligence researchers, with Gemini contributors Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel planning to join rival AI developer Anthropic. According to a report from Bloomberg, both researchers are viewed internally as important contributors to Google’s flagship Gemini model family. Adler worked on Google’s AI coding efforts, while Pritzel was involved in the process used to train AI systems. Neither company has publicly confirmed the moves. The report also does not say when the researchers will formally leave Google or what positions they will hold at Anthropic. Training a large AI model requires decisions covering its architecture, data preparation, distributed computing infrastructure, and post-training methods that shape how the finished system behaves. Researchers with experience operating at the scale of Gemini are consequently difficult to replace quickly. Both Adler and Pritzel have previously contributed to Google DeepMind’s scientific research as well. They are listed among the authors of the company’s work on expanding AlphaFold protein-structure predictions across entire proteomes, alongside AlphaFold researchers including John Jumper. The reported departures arrive shortly after another important change within Google’s Gemini organization. Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer is leaving Google for OpenAI, after returning to the search company in 2024 through its deal with Character.AI. Shazeer is particularly well known as one of the authors of the Transformer paper, whose architecture became the foundation for most modern large language models. Anthropic, meanwhile, has been recruiting recognizable figures from other leading laboratories. OpenAI co-founder and former Tesla AI director Andrej Karpathy joined Anthropic’s pre-training team in May. His move, followed by the reported recruitment of several Google researchers, suggests Anthropic is strengthening the research teams responsible for the core capabilities of future Claude models rather than concentrating solely on product and enterprise sales. The competition is complicated by the companies’ extensive commercial relationships. Anthropic competes directly with Google’s Gemini models, but it also relies on Google as an infrastructure partner. In April, Anthropic announced an expanded agreement with Google and Broadcom covering multiple gigawatts of next-generation Tensor Processing Unit capacity. TPUs are Google-designed accelerators used to train and run large AI models. via Bloomberg
    • This article makes my head hurt. Lots of confusing words
    • Google adds built-in computer control to Gemini 3.5 flash by Karthik Mudaliar Google has added Computer Use as a built-in tool in Gemini 3.5 Flash, giving developers a single model that can reason about a task and operate graphical interfaces across browsers, mobile devices, and desktop environments. The feature is available through the Gemini API and Google’s Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, although it remains a preview feature for now. Computer Use enables an AI agent to examine screenshots and return actions such as mouse clicks, scrolling, and keyboard input. A developer’s application must execute those actions, capture the resulting screen, and send it back to Gemini, creating a continuous loop until the task is completed. Google says the integration can be used for activities including repetitive form filling, application testing, research across multiple websites, and longer enterprise workflows. Gemini 3.5 Flash can work with browser, mobile, and desktop environments, whereas Google’s earlier standalone Computer Use model was primarily positioned around browser interaction. The main change is consolidation. Computer control was previously offered through the separate Gemini 2.5 Computer Use preview model. As Neowin reported when that model was introduced, it was designed to interpret a visual interface and generate actions without requiring a website-specific API. Google later brought Computer Use to preview versions of Gemini 3 Pro and Gemini 3 Flash in January 2026. The latest release now incorporates the tool into the stable Gemini 3.5 Flash model rather than requiring developers to select a specialized model solely for interface automation. Gemini 3.5 Flash itself was announced in May as Google’s latest fast model for coding and multi-step agent workflows. It supports a one-million-token input context window and up to 65,000 output tokens, along with adjustable thinking levels that let developers trade additional reasoning for lower latency and cost. Google also added that Gemini 3.5 Flash received targeted adversarial training for computer-use scenarios. The company is also offering safeguards that can require user confirmation before sensitive or irreversible actions and automatically stop a workflow when suspected prompt injection is detected. Its developer documentation describes configurable protections for areas such as financial transactions and changes to sensitive records. Google isn't the first to bring Computer Use to its platform. Anthropic has made computer control available through Claude, while OpenAI has continued improving computer-use performance in its recent models. Microsoft has also applied the concept to business workflows, including a Computer Use capability for the Researcher agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Dedicated
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • First Post
      Tom Schmidt earned a badge
      First Post
    • One Month Later
      D0nn13 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Rookie
      +ChiefOfNeo went up a rank
      Rookie
    • One Year In
      Tom Schmidt earned a badge
      One Year In
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      463
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      177
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      124
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      79
    5. 5
      Xenon
      76
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!