Tamagotchi — The Egg-Shaped Digital Pet

The Tamagotchi was released on 23 November 1996, in Japan. Bandai's egg-shaped handheld digital pet fitted in the palm of a hand, came in six variants at first, and cost ¥1,980 before tax. An English version, "TAMAGOTCHI", followed in the US in May 1997. Japan had it first.

An egg that was meant to be a watch

Players fed a creature on a small LCD screen, gave it snacks and raised it. There were only three buttons, and according to Kodansha's Blue Backs site, a pet that was neglected ended up covered in droppings and died. Bandai credits the hit to its being a pioneer of digital pets, to the decision to include the idea of death so that it was truly a living thing, and to its odd characters that were hard to identify as anything in particular.

The name preserves how it was planned. According to Bandai's November 2025 announcement, the project was first developed as a watch, so it could be worn and looked after at all times; the name therefore combines its egg (tamago) shape with "watch". After street surveys and further development it was released on a ball chain instead, and many high-school girls could be seen caring for one clipped to their school bags.

Shortages and an apology advertisement

The first boom went far beyond what its maker expected.

According to Bandai, a toy that sold a million units was considered a big hit in the industry at the time. Supply could not keep up with demand, inquiries topped 10,000 a day, and the company took the unusual step of running an apology advertisement. Blue Backs recalls queues where people waited half a day and still went home without one, and frequent crimes aimed at getting hold of Tamagotchi.

The craze was recorded in other ways too. The 1997 Ig Nobel Prize in economics went to Akihiro Yokoi of Wiz and Aki Maita of Bandai, "the father and mother of Tamagotchi, for diverting millions of person-hours of work into the husbandry of virtual pets." According to English Wikipedia, many schools banned the toy because it disrupted classes.

The end of the boom and a ¥6 billion loss

The boom did not last. According to Bandai, it subsided amid a flood of imitations, and the company was left with large surplus stocks, booking an extraordinary loss of about ¥6 billion in the year to March 1999. Its 2025 announcement adds that there was a period after the boom when Tamagotchi was not on sale at all.

Four booms

Bandai describes the Tamagotchi's later history as four booms.

The 2004 revival took its cue from adults. According to Bandai, it noticed adults swapping email addresses and pictures over their phones' infrared ports and gave the Tamagotchi infrared communication for the first time. It caught on among primary-school children as a way to communicate, and sold about 5 million units in a year against a plan of 2 million. Having learned from the imitations of 1996, Bandai reused the original shape, which it had registered as a design, and kept the product's look out of pre-launch advertising.

By 2007 cumulative shipments worldwide had passed 70 million, and on 10 August that year the first official shop, Tamagotchi Department Store, opened at Tokyo Dome.

The fourth boom was lifted by reissues of old models. Original Tamagotchi, based on the Western versions of the first model and of Shinshu Hakken!! Tamagotchi, went on sale outside Japan from 2018 and in Japan from 2022; with many fashion-brand collaborations, the series had sold 11.52 million units by the end of July 2025. According to Bandai, worldwide sales of Tamagotchi including related merchandise grew about sevenfold in the five years from 2019.

100 million shipped

On 28 August 2025 Bandai announced that cumulative Tamagotchi shipments in Japan and overseas had passed 100 million. By then there had been 38 main models since 1996, sold in more than 50 countries and regions.

The August announcement dates the milestone to August 2025, while the November announcement says it was passed at the end of July. In the November announcement the overseas share is 51%. The Tamagotchi's 30th-anniversary year began on 23 November 2025.

Lineage

The Tamagotchi popularised a small handheld with only a screen and buttons that asked for a little care every day. Nintendo's handheld at the time was the Game Boy, released in 1989, and the year of the infrared Tamagotchi also brought the dual-screen Nintendo DS. For the wider story, see the game console timeline.