Since its launch in 2005, Nintendo's Dr Kawashima's Brain Training has sparked a market phenomenon. According to Nintendo the title, along with its sequel More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima, has sold over 30 million units worldwide, accounting for one in every five DS games purchased.
Such is the success of the Brain Training (or Brain Age in Japan/US) titles, they have become almost synonymous with the company's successful strategy to harness the spending power of casual gamers. With the help of Nicole Kidman and Patrick Stewart, Brain Training has vaulted the DS into new demographics, bringing consoles to the hands of people who would have once eschewed anything containing so much as a microchip.
Wii Fit also caters for this self-improvement market and has met with equally spectacular sales. But while few would question the benefits of games encouraging physical activity, the merits of brain training are not so clear-cut - here, in the second of a two-part series on games and health, Alastair McQueen puzzles over the research.
From N-Europe.com:
"NOE: Do you have a message for European users of the software?
HK: It makes me very happy that exercises developed in Japan, including the Hundred Cell Calculation and Division Marathon methods, will be put to good use by users in Europe. But I must also take this opportunity to give proper credit to the incredibly talented educators who originally developed these teaching methods – Hiroshi Kishimoto for the Hundred Cell method and Shunichi Miki for the Division Marathon (Hard) method.
I would love to have users experience the fun of learning together with this software."
Videogamer writes:
"Looks like Dr. Kawashima has some competition - there's a new Japanese bod in town. And this time we've got a game straight from the oversized brain of a Professor - oooh. Big question is, should you be bothered if you've already got Nintendo's phenomenally successful Brain Training or More Brain Training DS games? Should you be interested if you don't? Read on."
Welcome to VideoGamer.com Plays, Videogamer's weekly feature where they give you the inside track on what's been whirring in there disc drives this week.
They will be honest (so if they have been playing Superman on the N64 they will tell you). But if they have been hammering the latest billion-selling blockbuster they will let you know about that too.
This weeks games are:
Turok on Xbox 360.
Dr Kageyama's Maths Training on Nintendo DS
Day of Defeat Source on PC
if you want real brain training buy books of Doctor Edwards De Bono