Tamagotchi's Successor: A Virtual Squid

TOKYO - Last year it was a pet cyber-chicken. This year it's a mobile-phone-activated squid from outer space.

Bandai, a Japanese toy maker and inventor of the popular Tamagotchi virtual pet, is hoping its latest electronic gadget, the Wave UFO, will captivate kids and boost sales.

The Wave UFO, which dangles from a key ring, is a palm-sized computer screen featuring a creature from outer space. The creature will assume different forms if a mobile phone rings within a one-meter radius. And like the Tamagotchi, the Wave UFO's owner must look after the creature, supplying it food and air via buttons on the toy.

Bandai plans to sell 1 million Wave UFO toys priced at $25 the first year, said Akiko Tagami, a Bandai spokeswoman. That's compared with expected worldwide sales of 20 million Tamagotchi through March 1998 for the 17 months since it went on sale last November.

The appeal in these games "is in having something that interacts with you, a world where you are the most influential being," said Reinier Dobbelmann, a senior analyst at SBC Warburg Japan.