Brain Age - Experiment 1: The Non-Gamer

Posted Friday, March 31st, 2006 by Seth
Categories | TGC Archive

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told a story in his recent keynote at GDC ‘06 about how during a meeting one of Nintendo’s board members complained that no one his age was playing games. This complaint stimulated some thoughts and the result of ongoing analysis is Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! Brain Age is software designed to exercise your mind through a combination of math problems and reading aloud activities using the touch screen and mic of your DS. It is designed based on the work of Dr. Ryuta Kawashima and represents another experiment by Nintendo to challenge the types of entertainment a game company can offer. Their risk has paid off tremendously as it has resulted in expanding the gamer demographic and producing amazing sales in Japan.

brain_age.jpgSo it is in the spirit of science that I begin this progressive review of Brain Age with an experiment. With courage and conviction to explore, I approached a non-gamer. I handed the non-gamer my DS and copy of Brain Age and stepped away to a safe observation point to see what would happen. These are my observations.

Brain Age - Experiment 1 (m4a - 4mb - right click to save)

Brain Age - Experiment 1 (mp3 - 7mb - right click to save)

[music source: Nintendo - In Game Music]

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4 Responses to “Brain Age - Experiment 1: The Non-Gamer”


  1. Blight
    31. March 2006 at 11:05

    Excellent little piece. Sounds intriguing. I’ll have to buy some Nintendo stock and then hop around from nursing home to nursing home and try to promote Brain Age.

    Have you tried it yourself yet? And if so, what’s your brain age?

    I guess 20 as an ideal makes sense, you wouldn’t want to score a 13…

  2. Seth
    31. March 2006 at 11:29

    I have given it a go. Two days only so far so I need some more time before I can share more thoughtful impressions about my experience. You’ll have to wait for experiment 2 for that. At this early stage I will say that it is more entertaining than I had anticipated.

    My Brain Age? I am in the 40s.

  3. The Game Chair » Nintendo DS Download Stall…er Station
    11. April 2006 at 08:09

    […] Be sure to check out Seth’s audio review of the full version of Brain Age. […]

  4. The Game Chair » Brain Age - Experiment 2: The Gamer
    17. April 2006 at 11:34

    […] Today Nintendo announced that Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day is now available and so The Game Chair follows suit to announce our second and final Brain Age experiment. The first experiment explored the non-gamer’s experience. The second provides details on my personal experience and offers up the gamer’s perspective. The audio review includes additional play details including new training activities that have opened up and interactions between multiple users on the same DS. With the proper perspective, I find Brain Age to be a really entertaining if not useful piece of software for my DS. It’s a great way to take my brain for a walk. […]

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