"A hamster-shaped electric toy?"
Ruth Handler scratched her face in confusion.
As a 24/7 strategic partner of gamenova, Mattel has now made a fortune thanks to the various product lines launched by gamenova.
Especially the various barcode collectibles that were all the rage recently—that was practically printing money.
Honestly, this was probably the peak popularity of Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels.
And for something that sells so well, Lin Lixin could casually come up with several different ideas.
This time is clearly the same situation.
However, as always, Ruth needed some time to understand Lin Lixin's meaning.
"Yes, Mrs. Handler, to be precise, it's a... well... you could think of it as a lifelike, non-greasing pet substitute?"
"I see. So the idea is to satisfy children's desire to have pets while also making it easier for parents to accept?"
Ruth, being an older woman with a happy family, naturally understood exactly what was going on.
"Hehe, just as you said, but actually this thing was prepared to complement our next project." "You can guess, the next project is hamster-themed?"
"Yes, to be precise, it's Hamsterball."
Lin Lixin nodded, picked up the wire cage that was placed to the side, and placed it in front of Ruth.
The little guy is resting in the wood shavings pile right now.
The yellow-haired mouse was specially chosen by Cerny, who insisted that it looked like Pikachu.
But this thing is at most Raticate, a round lump that actually looks quite cute at first glance.
"Come on, get up and do a job for Mrs. Handler."
Lin Lixin poked its forehead, and regardless of whether it was awake or not, he directly put it into the Hamsterball set up in the cage.
Hamsters can run several kilometers every night, and it's bad for their health if they don't have a running wheel or Hamsterball to exercise.
Therefore, many cages are equipped with such devices for hamsters to exercise.
However, it's clearly not its time to be active yet, so it's obvious that this job won't be done today.
"Ahem, anyway, the reason I called you here, Madam, is precisely for this matter." Lin Lixin moved the cage aside, his expression turning serious.
"It's not just a simple plush toy, it's electric and electronic."
"This will be an electric hamster that can sense the user's touch, run around, and make various sounds."
"We'll help you with the detailed control logic and the MCU microcontroller."
This wasn't something Lin Lixin decided on a whim.
In fact, this project, " Hamsterball," actually collaborated with this type of electric hamster toy.
Even the company behind this is a familiar Activision: Activision.
Back in 2009, a toy called [zhuzhupets] suddenly became a global phenomenon.
With its affordable price of $9 each and collaborations with well-known brands like McDonald's's, it quickly became a phenomenal bestseller, sparking a buying frenzy.
This is a bit like Labubu, it comes and goes quickly.
But before the market cooled down, zhuzhupets' influence was nothing short of terrifying.
Around that time, the company behind zhuzhupets planned to enter the video game industry, attempting to open up a completely new battlefield. So, they approached several industry giants with prestigious reputations.
First and foremost are the several spin-off titles released on the Nintendo DS that directly used the name "zhuzhupets".
However, in that era, PC games had already grown into a formidable force that could not be ignored.
Consequently, Activision, a giant in the PC game publishing industry, naturally came knocking on their door.
Zhuzhupets officially hopes to collaborate on the development of a new game, but Activision isn't particularly enthusiastic about it.
But the traffic was there, so Activision had a sudden inspiration and found an old game called Hamsterball, released a few years ago, and had its developers create a reskinned version.
What was finally presented to the players was the once-popular Hamsterball Hamsterball adventure game, "zhuzhupets".