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is an educational title released in Japan for the Nintendo DS . Marketed for adults, the game is based on a popular book written by Professor Ryūta Kawashima. HISTORY During the GDC 2006 , Satoru Iwata 's speech included information about the development and initial retailer reaction about this game. Concept Nintendo was looking for something new to develop that would appeal both gamers and non-gamers. In one of the meeting the Chief Financial Officer of Nintendo Japan suggested reviewing a published book titled ''Train Your Brain'', which was enjoying an interesting success. Mr. Iwata decided to meet Professor Ryūta Kawashima , the writer. As both Mr. Iwata and Professor Kawashima were too busy to meet in other situations, they agreed to meet for an hour during the Nintendo DS launch. The original meeting became a brainstorming session that lasted three hours, in which Professor Kawashima explained the basics of his studies. Mr. Iwata ordered a team of 9 Nintendo developers to work on the game, and to have it ready in 90 days for demonstration. Gameplay The game, like Nintendogs , is designed to be played a small bit each day. Each session includes such brain-training activities as high-speed reading, drawing from memory, fast math problems, and Stroop tests. The DS is held on its side, with the touch screen on the right for right-handed people and the left for left-handed people. The controls used are a voice-recognition feature for the DS's internal mic, and a handwriting-recognition feature for its touch screen. So far, there have been few complaints about the accuracy of the touch screen, but the microphone has difficulty detecting the word "blue". After each session, Kawashima gives the player a score, called a "brain age", a number at least 20 (the ideal score), that tells the performance of the mind (a brain age of 37 would be approximately equivalent to a 37-year-old mind.) Ideally, the brain age should be lower than the real age, or approach 20. The game tracks the progress, along with up to three other users. After the session, the player can redo the exercises or Sudoku . The player can also play 16-player multiplayer over Nintendo DS download play in a math calculation battle. Retailer reaction As expected, retailers expressed concern about the new title. The most important retailers in Japan were given the game for 15 minutes to test it out. In the end, Nintendo secured near 70,000 orders for the first shipment, an amount above most expectations. In comparison, the sequel had over 850,000 orders placed before launching. WESTERN RELEASE In the American Market, the game is known as ''Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day'' and was released on April 17 th, 2006 . Nintendo gave out copies of the North American version of Brain Age at GDC 2006. They have also shipped free retail versions to special members of the Nintendo NSider Forums. These people received their copies before the official release date. Europe has a release date for ''Brain Training'' 1, 2 and 3 for June 9 , 2006 , which is interesting because Nintendo of Japan has not even decided to release ''Brain Training 3'' in Japan . {Link without Title} Nintendo added Sudoku to the game, and it is rumored that they will have a large marketing campaign aimed at the popularity of the puzzle game found in many British and German newspapers. {Link without Title} SALES INFORMATION The game debuted selling around 43,000 copies in May, considered a good number for an educational title. Although most titles only stay in the japanese weekly top ten list of games for a couple of weeks, ''DS Training for Adults'' managed to stay, as of January 2006, between the most sold games for 34 weeks (except three weeks). As of April 19 , 2006 , the game managed to sell over 1,986,523 copies in Japan alone, in its 48th week of release. {Link without Title} TRIVIA # When at the main menu where the man with glasses (Ryūta Kawashima) appears, simply say "glasses glasses" rapidly into the Nintendo DS' internal microphone. The man will proceed to create a cornucopia of hilarious facial expressions. # Holding down "select" while choosing the "Brain Age Check" option of the game will open up the "Brain Age Check Selection Menu," allowing the player to select which activity to perform instead of the computer randomly choosing one. # Also, when holding down select at the graph menu, it is possible to get the secret "Top 3" menu. # When at the main menu, say "doctor" into the mic and he will laugh. REVIEWS SEE ALSO REFERENCES
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