It's 2025 and the era of desktop anime girls is truly upon us. Thanks to the latest entry in this unlikely trend, you can even hire Hatsune Miku to hang out on your taskbar while you do your daily work at the desk.
Desktop Mate arrived on Steam on January 7, with developer infiniteloop billing it as a “next-generation desktop pet platform that brings cute characters to your computer.” The basic app is free and adds an original, 3D animated anime girl to your desktop. You can place it on your taskbar or on top of a window. You can rub the mouse cursor to pat his head. You can… move it. And I'm really starting to run out of features to describe here.
The free app launched with a piece of DLC, which is a $15 add-on that adds vocaloid megastar Hatsune Miku to the roster of desktop anime girls. She doesn't do anything more than the other girl: neither character has a voice, which seems a little strange when you have a Vocaloid star on your roster, but hey, it's Hatsune Miku.
While I was bored about five minutes after installing Desktop Mate, it's quickly gaining traction, with 295 positive reviews (89%) and a maximum concurrent player count of 6,230 according to SteamDB. Those aren't exactly Palworld numbers or anything, but they show the undeniable power of a desktop waifu. The trend that VPet-Simulator apparently started is not over yet.
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