Touch Your Tamagotchi of Today

In 1997, I bought and became obsessed with Tamagotchi. They became so popular that schools were confiscating and banning them. Soon after, the Digimon virtual pet was released (only later did the anime come out, which ended up feeling a lot different). Digimon replaced my Tamagotchi and I was hooked for a few years - I even kept detailed journals of everything I did so I could understand how the monsters grew. Well at the end of this year, Sega Toys and Activision are releasing something similar for DS, titled Wappy Dog. Except you don't just take care of a virtual pet - there's a physical counterpart to the pet. It's not as exciting as a Digimon, but it's still a very unique DS accessory (other cool ones being the DS keyboard from Battle & Get! Pokémon Typing DS, or the Paddle Controller with Arkanoid DS). I think the physical/virtual pet DS game is an idea that has huge potential. I hope other companies run with the idea and release something awesome, perhaps for 3DS. You could even use the AR technology to spruce up the experience around your physical virtual pet. Perhaps changing it's form, or adding accessories to it. Maybe it could have AR card symbols as part of the hardware, or even a screen that changes the AR trigger image.