9th August 2006, 7:24 PM
Well, the original Petz games weren't by Ubisoft, they were by P.F.Magic, so the NEW Petz series is kind of a Nintendogs ripoff (notice the release soon after Nintendogs became a big hit? Yeah.)... but yes, the series clearly predates Nintendogs. Stuff like Catz/Dogz and Tamagochi are earlier examples of "virtual life" titles... though I'm sure that there are others before that...