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Nintendo offers free DS, Personal Trainer: Math to math-loving kids
What's the best way to entice middle-schoolers into their schools' math clubs? How about the promise of a free Nintendo DS -- and a math game? Personally, we think the best way would be to move the meetings to Steak 'n Shake and replace the "math" part with "vanilla malts." But, while delicious, it's not exactly educational, and wouldn't really make for a good PR opportunity for Nintendo. Instead, the company has partnered with MATHCOUNTS, a "national enrichment, coaching and competition program" for middle school math, to bribe four middle school math clubs across the US with free DS systems -- and, of course, Personal Trainer: Math. They could hand out Fire Emblem or something -- but again, not so much of a PR opportunity.
Pokemon Platinum, Fire Emblem, tons more Q1 releases officially dated!
Nintendo has graced us with their customary infodump of the next quarter's DS and Wii releases, and by far the biggest news in terms of guaranteed sales: Pokémon Platinum has finally been officially confirmed for North America (not that there was ever a speck of doubt), and it's indeed coming March 22. Statistically speaking, you will probably purchase it. Also in first-party news, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon hits February 16, a bit earlier than Circuit City predicted. Personal Trainer: Math will be Nintendo's first DS release of the year on January 12. In third-party news, we're thrilled to see a January 6 release date for Retro Game Challenge -- except that according to the list, it'll be competing with Big Bang Mini. Atlus's My World, My Way is on its way February 3, with Legacy of Ys following on the 10th, and Trackmania on March 17. GTA Chinatown Wars has yet to be dated in this release, but we know it's March 17. And Monster Band from DreamCatcher: could it be Music Monstars? Is that just for us? Check the post break for the full list! %Gallery-25539%
Cooking Guide, Maths Training, Walking Rhythm DS rebranded for US
One of the less-reported announcements from Nintendo's conference is the "Personal Trainer" series of games. We were a bit confused to see the announcement of Personal Trainer: Cooking when we're still waiting for Cooking Guide. And then about two seconds later we figured it out. Personal Trainer: Cooking is Cooking Guide. We're guessing, but it seems like a fairly uncontroversial guess.Nintendo's press release about the conference details Personal Trainer: Cooking and two other Personal Trainer titles that make it much more obvious that these are existing/known training games. Personal Trainer: Math is "a collection of basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division drills based on the Kageyama method." Which means it's Maths Training, released in Europe back in February. And Personal Trainer: Walking "will introduce a wireless pedometer, letting consumers not only track every step they take, but also turn walking into interactive entertainment." It must be Aruite Wakaru Seikatsu Rhythm DS (Learn by Walking Rhythm DS), then!Cooking will be released on November 24, and the other two will appear sometime next year.%Gallery-33410%
