BrainAge
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Crimson / black DS Lite for sale in America?
Alright kids, no more complaining that Canada gets all the good stuff. 'Course, all of us North Americans still have a bone to pick with Japan and South Korea, but that's another story for another day. Apparently, the crimson / black DS Lite that snuck up on us last week at Future Shop has made its way south to the US of A -- or at least, it had. According to DSFanboy, GameStop had the specially colored bundle (which included Brain Age 2 but sadly omitted the carrying case) listed on it's website for $149.99, but now it seems that the item has been yanked. Keep your eyes peeled Americans, it ought to pop back up in due time.[Via DSFanboy]
Nintendo uses beach nurses to promote Brain Age in Greece
A reader of N+ recently sent in a note about Nintendo's unique marketing approach in Greece. To help promote Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!, women dress up as nurses and walk around local beaches letting sunners test their brain age. This seems a bit counter-intuitive, as hot nurses plus scantily-clad beachgoers tend to make the blood flow to parts of the body that aren't the brain. But you have our attention, at the very least. More pics can be found on Nintendo's official Greek site.[Via N+]
Beach nurses promote Brain Age in Greece
Promoting Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!, these nurses you see above were on-hand at the beaches in Greece, providing beach-goers with an opportunity to test their brain's age while soaking up some sun. Seems like a cool marketing idea, but why go with the whole nurse theme? Personally, we think it would've been better if Nintendo flew Dr. Kawashima over to the beaches of Greece and had him approach folks with the DS ... wearing a Speedo.On second thought, maybe that isn't the best idea. Carry on, Nintendo ...[Via N+]
Two-tone DS Lite, Brain Age 2 bundle coming August 20 [Update]
Last week, forum members at RedFlagDeals stumbled upon a listing on Canadian retailer Future Shop for a two-toned, Crimson and Black Nintendo DS Lite bundled with a matching carrying case and Brain Age 2. The entire set was priced at $159.99 Canadian dollars (approx. US $153). It was to ship on August 20 alongside the brain trainer's release date.Unfortunately, the listing has since gone missing. We really dig the new colors and the deal. Here's hoping it comes back up close to Brain Age 2's launch, either on Future Shop or another retailer site.Update: Though it hasn't returned to Future Shop yet, Gamestop has a listing for the bundle, priced at $149.99, with no image available and no mention of a bonus carrying case.[Via Engadget]
Is that a black and red DS Lite?
Sure, we've seen the two new colors Japanese consumers are getting their hands on, however a third and more appealing (to us, anyway) color has emerged from the ashes of E3. A red and black DS, which is red on the top clamshell piece and black throughout the remainder of the handheld, is only to be included in special bundles along with Nintendo's upcoming sequel Brain Age 2. In checking around the internet, we found a bundle of the new color is already being made available to Canadian folks via retailer Future Shop, where they can pick up the new DS Lite, along with Brain Age 2, for a cool $159.99 (or $152.67 USD). The bundle even comes with a carrying case, which we're not sure is to be included in other bundles, as well.
DS releases for the week of July 16th
We hate to break it to you -- but if you're in the U.S., there are no new DS games this week. And here we were all coasting on a post-E3 high, too, stuffed with news and excitement. Sigh. Guess we'll just have to ogle the releases around the world, then. Collect your oglin' glasses and hit the jump!
DS Daily: Brain Training Training
With Brain Age 2 on the way, we thought we'd start helping everyone limber up mentally, in the most meta way we could think of. Let's come up with new Brain Age challenges! They may increase bloodflow to the prefrontal cortex, or they may not-- we have no idea! We'll get you started with some examples: You have two minutes to write as many jokes as you can about Dr. Kawashima's mama! Calculate Nintendo's profits based on a given number of Brain Age sales! How well can you remember the lyrics to Kris Kross's Sprite jingle?
DS Daily: Machismo
Ever lie about what you're playing? Say, for instance, you're playing Pokemon, which is widely regarded among the non-gaming population (and certain contingents of the gaming population) as for babies, and you, as a non-baby, are asked what's in your DS by a friend. Do you say something distinctly un-baby-like, like Brain Age or the tough-sounding Tank Beat? Or do you stay true to yourself and happily announce that you're training your new Wurmple? Are there other situations in which you consider lying? If, for example, you are playing Brain Age and you're accosted by a gamer friend who hasn't joined the non-game revolution? Or if some bloggers survey their audience and you're playing something that you don't think is appropriately cool?
Train your brain in public
Imagine an alternate universe in which arcades not only exist, but are still stocked with new games. Now imagine that one of the biggest and most impressive-looking units in the place is a brain training game. As you may have guessed, it's not an alternate universe! You know, because the coverage on this site is limited to just the one universe.Minna de Kitaeru Zenno Training is an arcade brain training game released in late 2006 by Bandai Namco, created under the supervision of the smartest disembodied head we know, Dr. Ryuta Kawashima. Much like Brain Age, it uses a touch screen to present simple mathematical and logical tasks. But unlike Brain Age, Zenno Training is on a huge screen in the middle of a game center.It's quite amazing how popular brain training has become! We wonder if Bandai Namco expects people to go back to the arcade every day for training. That would be so diabolical!
Conjecture Countdown: 8 days to go
Even with a diminished E3, there's no controlling the wave of rumors that hit the Internet every year before the show. Why fight it? From now until E3 hits, we'll be posting one piece of wild speculation every day. Some may be patently ridiculous, and others just might turn out to be true. Even some of the ridiculous ones might turn out to be true! Rest assured, everything will be totally made-up and unfounded. Except, of course, when we speak about all the ass Reggie is going to kick. That part? Totally true.Rumor: The third Train Your Brain installment, Brain Age: With a Vengeance, will be announced for a late 2007 release. To keep the non-game series fresh, this third episode will come packed with popular gimmicks like customizable outfits, alternate endings, and a new, sinister villain -- Dark Dr. Kawashima!
Nicole Kidman in Nintendo's latest marketing campaign
Although questions have certainly been circulating around Nintendo's marketing department (in America, at least), it looks like decisions are still going forward in the potentially dwindling sect. Rather than going after a president or famed talk show host, the Big N has somehow landed Nicole Kidman herself to be the next face of the company in an upcoming advertising campaign. The spots, which are set to air "sometime this week," feature Kidman testing her mental aptitude with the DS game More Brain Training, and Nintendo is hoping the superstar's "universal appeal will help to extend Nintendo's success beyond its traditional young, male audience." And all this time we've blamed the nursing homes for the Wii shortages.
The beauty of Kidman, the brilliance of DS marketing
That sound you hear is your mom opening up her wallet to buy a Nintendo DS because Nicole Kidman is playing Brain Training and refuses to recognize her brain age as 52. If Nicole Kidman can fight her brain aging, so can middle-aged baby-boomers who refuse to get old as well. Having spent thousands to keep the outside of their bodies looking young, what's a couple hundred to keep their brain young as well? The advertisement is simple, cute, stars one of the globe's most beautiful actresses in a pristine white setting, and sadly, it makes us want to get a DS for our mothers. Why couldn't Nintendo make Nicole sit panties around her ankles on a toilet or spaz and cry? The part of the commercial that will send up red flags for gamers, and we can't help but laugh about, is when Kidman goes, "Scissors ... scissors!" Did the voice recognition software not understand her (if they were just filming her play the game)? Did they give her an Australian version of Brain Training for her accent? The absurd fun of Brain Age barely recognizing the word blue is still one of the craziest parts of that game. We clearly remember with our copy saying, "Blue. BLUE! Bru? There we go." Adding sad stereotypes to software is never good.
Nicole Kidman Brain Age 2 ad
Yesterday, we brought word that Nicole Kidman would be the new face set to advertise Brain Age 2, and now we have the ad in which she is featured. The best part of the ad? Her brain age is junk. Yup, let us all grab our tummies and let loose an earth-shattering laugh, for she has many millions of dollars, but at least we can draw a better Koala bear than she can.Check out the ad past the break.
Nicole Kidman the pretty face of More Brain Training DS
No, she won't be replacing the laughing, disembodied head of Dr. Kawashima, but actress Nicole Kidman will be starring in a series of print and television ads for DS's More Brain Training in Europe.According to Metro.co.uk, Kidman's a fan of the Brain Training titles, although the exact age of Kidman's brain is not known. As reported previously, More Brain Training (Brain Age 2) is due out in Europe on June 29.
Nicole Kidman enjoys Nintendo products*
Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman has joined the ranks of the brain-trained. The star of Practical Magic, Batman Forever, and Days of Thunder has agreed to become the official face of More Brain Training (well, the other official face) in a series of print and television advertisements to be shown across Europe. "I love the concept that Nintendo is reaching out to new audiences with their self improvement products like Brain Training," Kidman said. "Most importantly, I've quickly found that training my brain is a great way to keep my mind young." Maybe now Nintendo and Brain Age will finally be able to achieve some success.*For money.
Non-Game Boy: Serious games before they were cool
Since the release of Brain Age in Japan, Nintendo has turned their attention toward casual, nontraditional fare for adult audiences. Much of it, like Brain Age, is casual game material with a slight educational slant, but other successful DS releases, like Cooking Navi and Eigo Zuke, are not games at all, but rather educational aids and tools designed to use the DS's unique interface. They're all doing massive business, which makes it difficult to laugh at them no matter how silly they are. But Nintendo was not the first company to attempt to sell application software on a gaming system, however. That distinction probably falls on BASIC Programming for the Atari 2600. Nintendo wasn't even the first company to sell application software on a Nintendo handheld. In fact, Game Boy non-games appeared in 1991. They didn't change the face of gaming. But they make for an interesting historical footnote now, and isn't that better than selling millions of copies? It is for us!
Rumor mill: Nintendo licensing iPhone games
The rumors are flying about gaming giant Nintendo licensing "a limited amount of content" for the iPhone, and the rumors all seem to point back to this post over on a site called No Heat. They name no sources (of course), but they say that these Nintendo games will show up on the iTunes store at $29, and say that the games will "cater to an older audience."Now, if anyone is going to provide great gaming content on the iPhone, Nintendo would be a good fit-- with the touchscreen, they've already got some great properties set up on the DS (Brain Age would be a great fit, and of course all of their famous licenses). There are lots of great input methods that I'm sure Nintendo would love to take advantage of.But $29.99 is a steep price for a mobile entertainment game, even if it's Mario. Super Nintendo games are running about $10 on the Wii's Virtual Console, so either a) Nintendo is going to make iPhone owners pay through the nose, b) the games will be DS quality-- because $29 is about what you'd find a new DS game for, or c) No Heat is making it all up, and this is just another product of the iPhone rumor mill.
Brain Age 2 boxart is BLUUUUUUUUUE
We don't necessarily make a post about the box design for every new game, but we pretty much had to for Brain Age 2, for the following reasons: It's a huge game We are too weak to resist the obvious joke (see title) hahahaha bluuuuuuuue We don't know if it's possible to be as excited about the return of Brain Age as the Japanese public continues to be, but we eagerly await the return of our teacher, friend and constant source of Photoshop inspiration, Dr. Ryuta Kawashima's Disembodied Polygonal Head.[Via GoNintendo]
Toys R Us summer toys list contains up to one video game
Toys R Us has put out their list of the top 24 hottest toys for this summer, and, surprisingly, there is only one video game on the list-- and even that one's kind of a non-game, according to some people's definitions. Nintendo's brain-teasin' hit Brain Age represents the entirety of our hobby in Toys R Us's summer marketing campaign, despite being a game about math problems, and despite being over a year old. Technically, they also advertise the Leapster, but ... don't worry about the Leapster..Are we seeing early signs of a Japan-style Brain Age phenomenon? Should we start hoarding DS Lites? [Via Game|Life]
Square Enix chief: 360, PS3 too fancy for today's market
Though the exact word used by the Financial Times article is "over-engineered," a word we deemed too complex for today's headline. Yoichi Wada, chief executive of Square Enix, feels that consoles such as the PS3 and 360 are over-engineered and out of place in today's gaming market, noting that handheld platforms will be the ones to dominate this year. After handing Dragon Quest IX (and thus the keys to Japan) to the Nintendo DS and inundating the PSP with remakes, Wada's belief should come as no surprise."There is a new breed of gamers in the market – we have to make games for all kinds of people," he says. "In the old days, we could just focus on the PlayStation or the GameBoy, but the environment has changed completely." It's the same story we've been hearing for months, that one filled with flailing grandmas and casual players shouting "Blue!" at the top of their lungs. Wada isn't giving up on the hardcore gamer just yet, though. Despite thinking that "there are too many specs" on the more advanced systems, he reckons they'll fare better in "a year or two years." Isn't that about the time Final Fantasy XIII comes out?
