They come in loads of different form factors (some try to look like video game consoles like the PSone, PSP, Nintendo DS, etc.) but this is the most common version I've seen:
These are very common dollar store products. There are many being sold for as low as 50 cents (in a batch) on Alibaba.
Infamous among Canadian anime fans of a certain vintage, this YTV promo for the Gundam Wing demonstrated the channel's sheer inability to handle an older youth oriented animated series. Tonally opposite to the content in question, the promo's narrator proudly joked that "Endless Waltz has endless waltzes." To make matters worse, Endless Waltz aired on YTV on September 11, 2000. Gundam Wing itself wouldn't premiere on the channel until after that. Endless Waltz is an epilogue. They spoiled large portions of the show by doing that.
Only reason I wouldn't write an article is because I feel it's silly to create an article that'll take longer to make than it'll take to watch the item in question.
The first English language version of Dragon Ball might be its most obscure. Frontier Enterprises, a recording studio based in Tokyo, Japan that operated in the 1970/80s in Japan and specialized in English versions of film, allegedly produced something for Akira Toriyama's franchise. The only reference to this dub comes from Dick Nieskens, a voice actor who worked for the company in the 80s.
I've spoken to him about this mysterious Dragon Ball dub, but unfortunately it's been so long that he doesn't really remember much about it. He's claimed it was a Dragon Ball Z production, though that doesn't match up with his timeline. He says he left Japan for Hong Kong by 1988, which would've been a year before Dragon Ball Z began its television run in Japan. I suspect it was a dub of the first Dragon Ball movie (Frontier only worked on movies) but without a confirmation of which film it's hard for me to justify writing an article about it.
Frontier's dubs were primarily used on airlines, so I really don't know how this could resurface.
Even when Maker was able to take advantage of Disney’s deep bench of characters and other intellectual property, there were problems. According to one source, Maker produced a “Star Wars”-related show, consisting of about a dozen episodes that cost “hundreds of thousands” to make, but it won’t ever see the light of day because Maker didn’t go through the proper channels at Disney.
“They just took liberties with the ‘Star Wars,’” said the source. “It’s a lot of money just sitting on a shelf somewhere.”
What's interesting is that trailer is clearly narrated by Andrew Francis, who is a Vancouver actor. The cast listed on the TV Tropes page are also Vancouver actors.
Now, did the shows you mention inspire a DVD player? As far as I can tell, no. The focus was on Mickey Mouse, Disney Princesses, and Power Rangers. The included DVD will probably disappoint you, too. I dug up the productpages for some of the old players. They mention the freebie but describe it as a Disney Channel sampler. Rather than specific releases, you're probably getting a random assortment of episodes from each show (maybe even trailers/clips if they're feeling extra cheap) to preview on a single disc.
As Terdiaxxd001 said, this is a problem for more than just Naomi Iwata's games. The vast majority of feature phone titles from that time period are gone.
The toy you are describing sounds a lot like the Pixel Chix (Chics?) toys. The flash game, however, I've never heard of.
OP's description reminds me of Radica's Cube World toys, but your guess sounds like an exact match. The Wiki article on it even mentions a game called "Monster Baby".
Talking about "lost" media that is sitting in the production company's vault and not actual "no one involved with this has a surviving copy" lost media, there's usually six options:
1. Those involved do not believe it's profitable to re-release the thing in question. 2. There are legal issues (clearance, ownership, unpaid royalties, expired distribution rights, etc.) that are too difficult and costly to overcome. 3. It could be damaging to an individual/company's image to re-release it (Song of the South, etc.). 4. The costs to transfer the media to a new format in a proper release would be astronomical (think MMOs that have had their servers turned off, or really old films/TV shows that need a complete restoration). 5. Through company acquisitions/mergers and employee turnover, those currently running the company are unaware of what's in their library. Or you know, they forgot about it. 6. The thing is genuinely lost media where the materials are completely gone.
I think we're on the cusp of a huge boom in "lost" media across all mediums (movies/TV shows, games, music, and books). There has never been as much English-language produced material as there is now. There are hundreds of TV channels across the world creating original content each year. Thousands of films. Probably tens of thousands of apps/games and books. Tens of thousands of online videos. The barrier to entry to creating content has never been lower, but who is documenting this? Who is ensuring their continued availability? As physical media declines in favour of digital releases, we're running the risk of losing a lot of things. We're no longer buying a copy of something that will last as long as the physical item can. We're buying licenses/viewing windows that can be removed at any time. We've already seen countless video games have their online components shutdown and countless others get removed from digital storefronts. We've seen straight to Netflix/iTunes productions vanish. We've seen digital ventures run by huge companies fail and everything produced for it goes away with it. This happens all the time without notice.
That's not even dealing with the behemoth that is amateur-produced content on Youtube, Soundcloud, Amazon Kindle, etc. where 5 years from now the service they uploaded their stuff on has been shutdown and they have no backups, or the sole owner passed away and their digital storefront has to be removed since a dead person can't do website upkeep or collect a cheque.
The worst part is that we're living in the worst age of copyright protection, where companies have ignored fair use and have tried their hardest to prevent things from falling into public domain. These big businesses have shown time and time again they're uninterested and incapable of making their libraries available to current audiences, so it's up to historians and pirates. A Youtube user may have uploaded the only known footage of a show from personal VHS recordings. Then that channel to get taken down by copyright strikes so that "found" media becomes "lost" all over again.