Unreleased Tamas Appreciation Post

[Decotchi]

In crafting my tamagotchi wishlist, I stumbled across promotional images of various tamagotchis that were scheduled to be released but later canceled. The two I'm saddest about are the line of USA Morinos aka Tamagotchi Garden (excuse the grainy image, this is the best I could find via tamashell.com):

The yellow one definitely takes inspiration from the yellow w/ leaves Morino



It would've been interesting to see red ones! 

And these adorable P2s that were scheduled for US release as wave 5:

There are several more listed here.

It got me wondering - were prototypes ever created for these, or just concept art? Is one of these Tamagotchi Gardens tucked away in Bandai HQ archive? 

Edit: I see someone in a past thread mentioned they saw these Tamagotchi Gardens at Toys R Us...could it be? 

What other unreleased tamas are you wistful about?

 

[Penguin-keeper]

And these adorable P2s that were scheduled for US release as wave 5:

There are several more listed here.

It might be of interest to you that the second design here, with the purple logo and characters, was revived, albeit in pink, for The Original Tamagotchi/Tamagotchi Original re-releases. I only have a UK link right now (the first batch were exclusive to The Entertainer, here), but they did see release in North America too, as far as I know.

 

[Decotchi]

It might be of interest to you that the second design here, with the purple logo and characters, was revived, albeit in pink, for The Original Tamagotchi/Tamagotchi Original re-releases. I only have a UK link right now (the first batch were exclusive to The Entertainer, here), but they did see release in North America too, as far as I know.

Good to know! I do have the original P2 with the blue characters, so maybe I'll start a little collection of them all. I think the original P2 also comes with pink characters, but it may be simpler to find the re-release.

 

[Tacoburritotchi]

In crafting my tamagotchi wishlist, I stumbled across promotional images of various tamagotchis that were scheduled to be released but later canceled. The two I'm saddest about are the line of USA Morinos aka Tamagotchi Garden (excuse the grainy image, this is the best I could find via tamashell.com):

The yellow one definitely takes inspiration from the yellow w/ leaves Morino

View attachment 591

It would've been interesting to see red ones! 

And these adorable P2s that were scheduled for US release as wave 5:

There are several more listed here.

It got me wondering - were prototypes ever created for these, or just concept art? Is one of these Tamagotchi Gardens tucked away in Bandai HQ archive? 

Edit: I see someone in a past thread mentioned they saw these Tamagotchi Gardens at Toys R Us...could it be? 

What other unreleased tamas are you wistful about?

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! But they never got released!

 

[Decotchi]

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! But they never got released!

Yeah, I'm skeptical as well! But who knows, maybe someone out there has a prototype or promotional release that we don't know about?

 

[Tacoburritotchi]

It's always possible!

 

[Penguin-keeper]

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! But they never got released!

Yeah, I'm skeptical as well! But who knows, maybe someone out there has a prototype or promotional release that we don't know about?

It's always possible!

If it is true, then it's possible that they lived in an area that was used as a test-market. I grew up in one myself, and some toys, magazines, foods, and so on, saw limited public releases there (often, but not always, following even-more-limited releases with people who were members of product-testing panels*), and did not always go on sale nationwide if they didn't do well enough. This meant that we sometimes got new products earlier than the rest of the country, too, though.

*As a child, I sometimes found this to be a bit disappointing, because tester products that advertised included premiums and freebies often did not have them in this form - it sucked to see "Free [Whatever] Inside!" on a box, only for it to not even exist at that point.

 

[Decotchi]

If it is true, then it's possible that they lived in an area that was used as a test-market. I grew up in one myself, and some toys, magazines, foods, and so on, saw limited public releases there (often, but not always, following even-more-limited releases with people who were members of product-testing panels*), and did not always go on sale nationwide if they didn't do well enough. This meant that we sometimes got new products earlier than the rest of the country, too, though.

*As a child, I sometimes found this to be a bit disappointing, because tester products that advertised included premiums and freebies often did not have them in this form - it sucked to see "Free [Whatever] Inside!" on a box, only for it to not even exist at that point.

Oh wow, I didn't know that test-market areas were a thing! That's really neat - though I'm sure it had its downsides, as you said disappointment of not seeing the finished product with all its freebies.

If these Morinos were released in a test-market area, I wonder how many tama collectors have them? I think I just found my ultimate holy grail tama!

 

[Shulk]

I want the yellow Garden shell lol. I really like the Yellow Japanese one best outta the bunch, so I'm not surprised I like that yellow one. 

 

[Penguin-keeper]

Oh wow, I didn't know that test-market areas were a thing! That's really neat - though I'm sure it had its downsides, as you said disappointment of not seeing the finished product with all its freebies.

Test-markets are very interesting things! Here's a bit of info.

The two most interesting test-market stories that I know of are that of the PAL version of the TurboGrafx-16 (renamed simply to "Turbografx" for the proposed PAL release), which was trialled in France and parts of the UK, and whose remaining units were found in a warehouse decades later and sold as new-old-stock at knockdown prices for a while, and that of "Virus", a prototype version of the NES game Dr. Mario, which was found in an old PlayChoice-10 cabinet from a particular Chuck E. Cheese location in the US decades later.

If these Morinos were released in a test-market area, I wonder how many tama collectors have them? I think I just found my ultimate holy grail tama!

If they really were made, and it wasn't simply a half-remembered false-memory that was actually another model, then more would exist than the five mentioned in the post.

My understanding is that some would've been used within Bandai, some might have gone out to members of product-testing panels (this one just depends on how Bandai were doing things, as far as I know), and the rest would've been put on sale at retailers that matched their target demographic. We also have to account for the fact that the numbers would be small and that most would not have been bought by enthusiasts but rather by kids or their parents, and most would not survive today, if they ever really existed at all.

What we need to know is what the minimum production-run was for a small plastic electronic toy like this at that time - if they really were made, then the images of these unreleased models might actually be production samples and not non-functional prototypes.

Don't get your hopes up or anything, mind you - without further reports, and without any evidence, the most likely explanation is unfortunately that it was simply a misremembered sighting. I just wanted to raise the alternate possibilities about test-markets and production-samples, because those might make it still worth investigating, and I'm sure that we all love a good mystery.

 

[Decotchi]

If they really were made, and it wasn't simply a half-remembered false-memory that was actually another model, then more would exist than the five mentioned in the post.

For sure - I have a feeling it was a false-memory, I'm sure someone would've posted about owning them by now if they really did exist!

Not to mention that the promotional art was just that - art - and not actual prototypes of the tamas. 

Maybe one day we'll get lucky and Bandai will decide to release them in the US now that the anniversary re-releases proved to be popular.