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This could be the perfect pet for Londoners - you don't have to walk it, it doesn't foul the carpet, and when you're bored you just switch it off.
EyePet, launched tomorrow by Sony, enables players to see themselves on screen interacting with a computer-generated animal in their living room.
Virtual reality technology means "pet-owners" can play with and give commands to the creatures simply by moving around in front of their TV.
Players sitting in their living room are filmed on a high-definition video camera connected to a PlayStation 3 console. The pet and its toys are then superimposed on the image on the TV screen. The animal, which looks a bit like a cross between a dog, cat and monkey, reacts to voices and gestures and can recognise objects, such as toys, that a player puts on screen.
The £20 game is similar in concept to the Nineties craze of Tamagotchi: cyber-pets on hand-held mini-consoles that had to be looked after and played with.
But with Eyepet "there are some incredible technologies," said Russell Harding, the game's producer at Sony's London studios. "We are using audio and video to create an augmented reality, and this is the most advanced we've seen. The key was getting people to form a bond with their pet. Children do this incredibly quickly, and it seems to bring out the inner child in adults."
There are more than 60 challenges and a "magic toy" function: the game comes with a black plastic "card" that a player holds within view of the camera. On doing so, the PS3 creates an object, such as a trampoline or food bowl, that the pet interacts with. When the card is moved the object moves on screen.
Eyepet can be dressed (Sony plans to sell outfits). And unlike real pets, there never comes a time when you have to bury them in a shoebox in the garden.
Mr Harding said: "We decided right at the start that Eyepet never gets old and never dies."
