Toy maker Takara originally introduced the gadget in Japan a year ago as a toy that would appeal to adults as well as children. Despite the steep $124 price tag, Takara has so far sold 300,000 units. Teenage girls and young women were probably driving sales, say market watchers. Perhaps they liked being able to record their pup’s barks for up to 12 hours, to find out if it got lonely while they were at work or school. The device also retains 100 of Doggie’s most recent barks, which is useful in determining how its week went.
Bowlingual just arrived in the United States and retails for $120. Takara executives seem confident that American teens will go for Bowlingual in a big way: the firm is already planning the U.S. launch of Meowlingual, a cat version of the device. “It’s a little bit trickier to determine cats’ emotions,” says Takara spokesperson Kennedy Gitchel. The Meowlingual’s phrases will likely be a bit more “spoiled or finicky,” he says. If it takes off, Takara is considering translators for fish and plants. But predicting fads is an even tougher nut than translating pets: neither Tamagotchis nor Purikura stickers ever made it big outside Asia.
