People buying Nintendo DS consoles to give their grey matter a workout with brain training games are wasting their money, a new study shows. Titles such as Brain Training, More Brain Training and Big Brain Academy, which cost $50 on top of the $200 DS handheld, are no better than a pen and paper at stimulating memory and improving brain power, a study of 10-year-old children by the University of Rennes in France has found. Nintendo claims in its advertising for the games - which in Britain feature Nicole Kidman - that they stimulate your brain and give it the workout it needs to improve blood flow and practical intelligence. It also claims the games can improve memory and keep your mind young, reinforced by the fact that players are given a brain age when completing the tests, which lowers as performance improves. In Australia, Nintendo furthered the perception that the games boost memory by announcing it would donate $1 to Alzheimer's Australia for every copy of Brain Training sold. Market watcher GfK said Brain Training was the seventh best-selling console game in Australia last year, with more than 140,000 units sold. But the study of 67 10-year-olds found that homework, reading, playing puzzles such as Sudoku and board games such as Scrabble were just as good as, if not better than, the brain training games.
NextGen Player writes: Every man has a list of health problems they hope don't happen to them during their lifetime. Male-pattern baldness, myopia and impotence come to mind. Well, after seeing Nintendo's new 'Build Your Brain' ad campaign I am officially adding shrunken head syndrome to my list. The ad on the right is one of many that have been appearing around Toronto in the past two weeks. Each ad contains two people (generally 40-something couples), with one person having an abnormally tiny head. Yes folks, this is what happens if you don't have your daily dose of Brain Age. The ad reads: More after the jump.
Wii Wii Sports - 17,850,000 Wii Play - 9,230,000 Super Mario Galaxy - 5,190,000 Mario Party 8 - 4,350,000 The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - 4,300,000 Super Paper Mario - 2,160,000 Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree - 2,000,000 Mario Strikers Charged - 1,650,000 Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - 1,140,000 Link's Crossbow Training - 1,070,000 Wii Fit - 1,050,000 Nintendo DS Nintendogs - 17,790,000 Pokemon Diamond & Pearl - 14,170,000 New Super Mario Bros. - 13,140,000 Brain Age - 11,710,000 Brain Age 2 - 9,840,000 Mario Kart DS - 9,670,000 Animal Crossing Wild World - 9,200,000 Super Mario 64 DS - 5,780,000 Big Brain Academy - 4,610,000 The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - 3,820,000 Pokemon Ranger - 2,610,000 Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time & Explorers of Darkness - 1,540,000
Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree is back at the top of this week's chart...
Jan. 2, 2008 -- MSNBC tallied in their Game of the Year readers' votes between December 19 and 27. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare garnered 33 percent of the over 17,000 votes and is MSNBC Readers' Game of the Year. The runner-up was Bioshock at 22 percent of the votes. The second runner-up was Mass Effect at 10 percent. Here are MSNBC readers' picks for the best in each genre: ¿ Best sports game: Madden NFL '08 ¿ Best racing game: Project Gotham Racing 4 ¿ Best casual game: Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree ¿ Best family game: LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga ¿ Best music game: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock ¿ Best handheld game: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass ¿ Best role-playing game: Mass Effect ¿ Best action/adventure game: Bioshock ¿ Best shooter: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare View the full report for the runners-up in each category.
The Simpsons Game for PlayStation 2 has finally managed to take out the top spot in the Australian game charts -- seven weeks after its initial release -- according to data trackers GfK Australia. The DS version of the game also made it into the top 10, taking out the seventh spot. Super Mario Galaxy for the Nintendo Wii -- last week's number one -- fell down to number two during the week of December 10-December 16. Drawn to Life for the Nintendo DS has reappeared in the overall charts at number three after a brief hiatus. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the Xbox 360 climbed up from the previous week to number five, while Activision's other chart topper -- Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock -- is nowhere to be seen. Halo 3 for the 360 has reappeared at number nine, while Nintendo's Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree bundle ended the week at number 10.
MSNBC video game section has been polling gamers about their favorite games in a number of categories, trying to narrow down the search for the Game of the Year. On Thursday the site put up the poll to decide which of the finalists, culled from the best of each genre, should be named the game of the year. The finalists are: ¿ Madden NFL 08 ¿ Project Gotham Racing 4 ¿ Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree ¿ LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga ¿ Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock ¿ The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass ¿ Mass Effect ¿ Bioshock ¿ Call of Duty 4 At the time of this writing Call of Duty 4 was leading with 31 percent of the vote. BioShock was close behind with 22 percent and Mass Effect was in a distant third with 8.6 percent. [ Words: Kotaku's Brian Crecente ]
To celebrate the first anniversary of the Wii, Nintendo has sent out an interesting fact sheet to the Canadian press that shows some of the achievements that the Wii has made in reaching out to the mainstream audience. Some of them were expected, some of them were surprising, and they all prove that gaming, at least for Nintendo, is reaching a whole new level.
Nintendo revealed six first party-published Wii games that have sold over a million copies worldwide on October 26. IGN reports five out of the six: 1. Wii Sports: 11.1 million 2. Wii Play: 6.3 million 3. Mario Party 8: 2.9 million 4. Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree: 1.8 million 5. Mario Strikers Charged: 1.3 million IGN has apparently made an error and omitted the sixth title. According to user comments at IGN and Wikipedia, the missing title could be either The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (3.61 million), Wario Ware: Smooth Moves (1.82 million), or Super Paper Mario (1.74 million).
The unthinkable has happened, Wii Play has finally been knocked off the top of the Wii charts...
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