No exact clarity on V1 and V2 identification.

[TamagotchiTreasury]

For whatever reason, there seems to be a ton of confusion on identifying a V1 from a V2. I'm not entirely sure why this hasn't been made clear. The usual response is to boot up a gotchi and see what's inside its workings (games, characters etc.) but that's not always convenient when purchasing dead or online ones. Has there never been a guide by shell and screen background alone?

For example:

This one has a yellow shell with red arrows around it. The screen background has numbers scattered about.... But what is it?


This one has a deep pink shell with light pink stars around it. The screen background is a checkerboard pattern.... But what is it?


This one has a pale blue shell with an angel in the corner. The screen background is a heart. BUT WHAT IS IT?

These examples I have shared are V1's and V2's. But I am willing to bet that the majority of you cannot tell me which one is which. This is a common problem for buyers and sellers. At this stage, the only way people ever know for sure, is by actually bringing them to life. I think it's vital to document ways to identify them from each other without doing that. Maybe this thread will become that guide.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

But I am willing to bet that the majority of you cannot tell me which one is which.

Since you've posted these examples, I assume that you can indeed tell us how these can be identified without booting them up? That seems like it would be a good way to kick off a documentation project.

 

[TamagotchiTreasury]

I do intend to add this information. I've been documenting this for years now. Some stuff is inconsistent but the code is being broken.

My biggest question is why Bandai made these first two connections so difficult to identify. The Gen 1 and Gen 2's were very similar but were easy to tell apart due to shell designs and background screen. Seems like a strange oversight.

To begin i will clarify ... the pale blue with angel and yellow and red arrows are both V1's.

 

[hwd45]

Those three are all V1s, aren’t they? I’ve been logging all known shell variations for a few years and unequivocally I can say that all three of these designs were European V1 designs. If there’s some gotcha here and it turns out to be a V2, I have a feeling it could have been some sort of factory error?

One of the biggest issues I had with the Tamashell website was just how many inaccuracies and missing details were present in the V1 and V2 sections, but in my own research I definitely came across a lot of things which make the already tricky research that extra bit more difficult - there’s a lot of Hong Kong V2s out there, for example, which use the same designs as some of the Japanese V1 shells.

Adding to the madness, there seems to have been a brief period of overlap between the two versions where V1 packaging would use the same plastic mold the V2 packaging used, and there were even some especially rare V1s which used a (currently unknown) version where some of the character sprites (e.g. the close-up animations) were replaced with their updated V2 sprites. To me, this sounds like a prime target for potential manufacturing mistakes.

I had been planning to log all my findings - shell waves included - onto one of my websites, but finding the time to do that is pretty difficult these days. The Tamagotchi wiki might be one of the most accessible means to document all of the shell variants, so I expect I’ll be updating those pages in the future.

 

[Maritchi]

I don't think is an oversight by Bandai. They are just not aiming at collectors that will buy them many years later second-handed. But yes, it is inconvenient for us, haha. I use Tama shell for that.

 

[TamagotchiTreasury]

Those three are all V1s, aren’t they? I’ve been logging all known shell variations for a few years and unequivocally I can say that all three of these designs were European V1 designs. If there’s some gotcha here and it turns out to be a V2, I have a feeling it could have been some sort of factory error?

One of the biggest issues I had with the Tamashell website was just how many inaccuracies and missing details were present in the V1 and V2 sections, but in my own research I definitely came across a lot of things which make the already tricky research that extra bit more difficult - there’s a lot of Hong Kong V2s out there, for example, which use the same designs as some of the Japanese V1 shells.

Adding to the madness, there seems to have been a brief period of overlap between the two versions where V1 packaging would use the same plastic mold the V2 packaging used, and there were even some especially rare V1s which used a (currently unknown) version where some of the character sprites (e.g. the close-up animations) were replaced with their updated V2 sprites. To me, this sounds like a prime target for potential manufacturing mistakes.

I had been planning to log all my findings - shell waves included - onto one of my websites, but finding the time to do that is pretty difficult these days. The Tamagotchi wiki might be one of the most accessible means to document all of the shell variants, so I expect I’ll be updating those pages in the future.

Haha. Well observed. Yes these are all uk V1s I posted. However. The pale blue angel design one is actually different to the others. That version actually has a different clock screen than the other 3, using a 24 hour clock instead of an AM and PM system.

I would like to add that clarifying these many different variants has been a major pain ... there is still no guarantee on any of it.

 

[hwd45]

Haha. Well observed. Yes these are all uk V1s I posted. However. The pale blue angel design one is actually different to the others. That version actually has a different clock screen than the other 3, using a 24 hour clock instead of an AM and PM system.

I would like to add that clarifying these many different variants has been a major pain ... there is still no guarantee on any of it.

Changes between devices like this actually aren’t a feature specific to certain shells; rather, this kind of change would usually be a standard ROM version difference - this means that any given shell usually has multiple different ROM variants, and often several hardware variants, too. That said, there are occasional cases of ROM versions that are only present in certain shells (e.g. special edition versions like PUMA can only be found in specific shells, and early versions like A.0 can only be found in a small handful of early release shells).

In this case, though, it’s probably not even that complicated. The clock mode can be changed using the A button on the clock screen. It would be interesting to see what versions are used by each of these devices though - you might be surprised by their differences.