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Tamagotchi’s still got it: Gobbles up 2.5M downloads in 90 days

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Readers may remember a few months back when we told you about Bandai’s new Tamagotchi smartphone app, which just been released at the time. Here in Japan, the Tamagotchi smartphone app is a paid offering, but Bandai offered a localized free-to-play version for the US. It’s called Tamagotchi L.i.f.e. And the company has just announced that it has surpassed 2.5 million downloads since its initial release, a decent initial result for that market. The L.i.f.e. app (what were they thinking when they named this?) first became available on iOS on March 28, and the Android version followed on February 14. 1.5 million of the total downloads to date have been on the iOS platform. The paid Japanese versions of Tamagotchi for smartphone have performed much better (even though they are paid) with the iOS version ranking no lower than fourth in the ‘family’ category on the Japanese App Store since its release. Similarly over on Google Play, the paid app has been a top 5 mainstay in the casual category for months [1]. While all these numbers still relatively modest, it’s a promising start. For Bandai to leverage its older IP like this, it should serve as an example to…

tamagotchi

Readers may remember a few months back when we told you about Bandai’s new Tamagotchi smartphone app, which just been released at the time. Here in Japan, the Tamagotchi smartphone app is a paid offering, but Bandai offered a localized free-to-play version for the US. It’s called Tamagotchi L.i.f.e. And the company has just announced that it has surpassed 2.5 million downloads since its initial release, a decent initial result for that market.

The L.i.f.e. app (what were they thinking when they named this?) first became available on iOS on March 28, and the Android version followed on February 14. 1.5 million of the total downloads to date have been on the iOS platform.

The paid Japanese versions of Tamagotchi for smartphone have performed much better (even though they are paid) with the iOS version ranking no lower than fourth in the ‘family’ category on the Japanese App Store since its release. Similarly over on Google Play, the paid app has been a top 5 mainstay in the casual category for months [1].

While all these numbers still relatively modest, it’s a promising start. For Bandai to leverage its older IP like this, it should serve as an example to companies like Nintendo who have yet to bring characters like Mario to the smartphone [2].

Bandai says that it plans to release an updated Tamagotchi Generation 2 this summer, with new features and characters. The company will also bring smartphone versions of Tamagotchi Angel in 2014. That’s not quite the blistering development schedule we’ve become accustomed to from modern day mobile developers – but it’s certainly faster than Nintendo.

Tamagotchi-mobileapp


  1. This is according to app metrics company App Annie (iOS, Android).  ↩

  2. It should be a lesson for Nintendo, but as we all know, Nintendo has not been the best at learning such lessons of late.  ↩

Tamagotchi is back as a fun mobile app!

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Remember Tamagotchi? The little egg-shaped keychain with a creature inside that asked for your attention to be fed and nurtured? Tamagotchi was first released way back in 1996 from Bandai and it set a precedent for many pet games and apps that followed. 40 million games were sold in over 30 countries, and it became a huge phenomenon in Asia as well as the United States. Bandai recently released a mobile app version of Tamagotchi for 350 yen (about $3.70). The app’s two modes makes it enjoyable for both kids and their parents. A toy mode replicates the familiar old game in black and white, and a smartphone mode lets you enjoy a touch-panel enabled color screen. Different Tamagotchi characters can be collected in a gallery, and you can redeem special wallpapers and background colors according to the number of characters collected. Although Tamagotchi’s history goes way back, Japanese kids these days are still familiar with the characters. Bandai’s game has evolved over time, with the latest release being Tamagotchi P’s that specifically targets young girls. Tamagotchi also began its own TV animation series in 2009 and has turned itself into a successful character business. For anyone who wants to…

Tamagotchi-mobileapp

Remember Tamagotchi? The little egg-shaped keychain with a creature inside that asked for your attention to be fed and nurtured? Tamagotchi was first released way back in 1996 from Bandai and it set a precedent for many pet games and apps that followed. 40 million games were sold in over 30 countries, and it became a huge phenomenon in Asia as well as the United States.

Bandai recently released a mobile app version of Tamagotchi for 350 yen (about $3.70). The app’s two modes makes it enjoyable for both kids and their parents. A toy mode replicates the familiar old game in black and white, and a smartphone mode lets you enjoy a touch-panel enabled color screen. Different Tamagotchi characters can be collected in a gallery, and you can redeem special wallpapers and background colors according to the number of characters collected.

Although Tamagotchi’s history goes way back, Japanese kids these days are still familiar with the characters. Bandai’s game has evolved over time, with the latest release being Tamagotchi P’s that specifically targets young girls. Tamagotchi also began its own TV animation series in 2009 and has turned itself into a successful character business.

For anyone who wants to re-live the old experience of raising a Tamagotchi, you can download the app for both iOS and Android.