>>9144091The 2017-2021 era of Tamagotchi has been the strangest era of Tamagotchi overall.
It started actually in 2016 with the release of the Tamagotchi m!x, which added the mixing gimmick and changed a lot of the established norms of previous devices. Even so, it was a step closer to normalcy of Tamagotchi devices from the 4U, which had performed really poorly. But rather than take what people liked about the m!x and build upon it for the next version, Bandai leaned in on it and produced a bunch of different versions of the same device, all with the same shallow gameplay but with some new characters, items, etc.
Then there was the Meets/On, which was supposed to build upon the m!x as I had mentioned before. But essentially, all it did was add pets into the mix. The Bluetooth feature only really provides longevity if you're using MyMeets and added your own content. The app itself was barren, with only two game options, a haphazard marriage option, and then sending items and money back to the device. And that's not even mentioning how sometimes the Bluetooth performed poorly on the devices, especially the Pastel version, which rarely can connect at all.
2017 was also the first year we started seeing the collaboration Nanos, starting with Pocket Usatama and later that year the Gudetama Tamagotchi. And Bandai has gotten a LOT of licenses for the Nanos since (ShonenJump revealed a Jujutsu Kaisen model is even coming out this December, though hasn't been officially announced yet). I'm wondering if the strong performance of the Nano collabs are why they keep making more of them. Or maybe the production of the color models has been reduced due to poor sales? Or a combination of the two.
Regardless, I'm really hoping the Pix and Smart inject some much-needed life into the brand. I'm so over mixing.
