In which year was the Tamagotchi toy released?

The Tamagotchi is a handheld digital pet that was created in Japan. It was released by Bandai on November 23, 1996 in Japan and in the USA on May 1, 1997, quickly becoming one of the biggest toy fads of the late 1990s and the early 2000s. As of March 2021, over 83 million units have been sold worldwide. Most Tamagotchi are housed in a small egg-shaped handheld video game with an interface consisting of three buttons, with the Tamagotchi Pix adding a shutter on the top to activate the camera.

It was invented by Aki Maita and Akihiro Yokoi in 1996. They both won the 1997 Nobel Prize for economics, dubbing them the father and mother of tamagotchi. It is a keychain-sized virtual pet simulation game. The characters are colorful creatures with simple designs based on animals, objects, or people. In 2004, beginning with the Tamagotchi Plus/ Connection, a second wave of Tamagotchi toys emerged, featuring a different graphic design by artist JINCO and gameplay which elaborated upon the first generations.

They are a small alien species that deposited an egg on Earth to see what life was like, and it is up to the player to raise the egg into an adult creature. The creature goes through several stages of growth, and will develop differently depending on the care the player provides, with better care resulting in an adult creature that is smarter, happier, and requires less attention. Gameplay can vary widely between models.