Nintendo Announces Pikachu Virtual Pet

7 February 1998 on a tip from one of our U.K. readers I checked out the Nintendo Japan website and sure enough, they have posted some info on their first keychain virtual pet. It is called Pocket Pikachu after one of the best known characters in their highly popular Pocket Monsters gameboy game (huge success in Japan). Note, a TV program based on the characters in the gameboy game was in the news in December 97 when the Pikachu character was shown with some bright red flashing lights and a number of children had seizures. Coverage of that event is on our Pocket Monster Seizures Page.

Note, this is a pet designed for sale in Japan and we have no knowledge of its eventual sale in the U.S. We do speculate that since Nintendo has entered the keychain game market in Japan, that sooner or later we will see them selling keychain pets in the U.S.

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