Mama would no doubt agree that everything is better when you make it yourself (or, in the case of her games, simulate making things yourself) -- that's why it's Cooking Mama and not Ordering from a Menu Mama or Warming Up some Lean Cuisines Mama. This Cooking Mama apron from Craftster user crafterbation is proof. She appliquéd a Mama sprite and a text window (just as they appeared in the DS game) onto this apron to create a wearable representation of the Cooking Mama results screen.
Contrast the homemade creation with the (also quite nice!) professionally-made aprons Majesco gave away at the launch of the Wii game. We think the home recipe is much more enjoyable!
Like the tortoise, Majesco has been slowly and steadily trying to make progress. The latest move on the part of the publisher is to form a new internal development house, Majesco Studios. Majesco CEO Jesse Sutton detailed the news in an interview with Gamasutra, commenting that this is "an attractive, low risk opportunity" for the company and the new studio will focus exclusively on creating casual titles for the DS and Wii.
Sutton has hopes for Majesco Studios, stating that the goal is for the new studio to produce three titles within its first year and to turn profitable by 2009.
Mama's been busy in the kitchen, not only cooking up tasty virtual treats, but also fat stacks of cash. 505 Games has announced that the franchise has sold over a million copies, becoming 505 Games' most successful franchise to day. Releasing first for the DS, another entry was later released on the Wii, cementing Mama as one of the region's most marketable mugs. Good for her!
Any of our European readers pick up any of her games on the DS or Wii?
Much like with yesterday's fantastic Space Invaders Extreme clip, Taito put out new promotional videos for four of its upcoming games -- Exit DS, Arkanoid DS, Legend of Kage 2, and Cooking Mama 2. The three-and-a-half-minute Exit DS trailer above, in particular, is pretty slick, reminiscent of Lucky Number Slevin's opening credits. Despite the touchscreen control issues many brought up when previewing Exit DS at the past TGS event, the action-puzzler looks pretty fun!
The rest of the streaming videos are available for you to check out at Dengeki's news page. Make sure to watch the Legend of Kage 2 clip all the way through, as the gameplay bits have been tucked at the end, after all the character art and gusts of cherry blossom petals.
Siliconera reports that everyone's favorite cooking/minigame/paper-doll game, Cooking Mama 2, will be released in the U.S. on November 13-- two days before the Japanese release. Of course that puts it directly in the middle of a frantic holiday game release season, but it also puts it in another special season, one for which we believe it is uniquely suited.
We think that Cooking Mama 2 is pretty much the only game that can benefit from a release near Thanksgiving. It's the perfect Thanksgiving-themed game, because it's about food, and eating food is what happens on Thanksgiving. As if that weren't enough, Cooking Mama 2 is all about "Dinner With Friends."
Before its release, Majesco will make a deliciously bite-sized Cooking Mama 2 demo available on DS demo kiosks. Feel free to sample it!
What's more appropriate for the kitchen than a cheerleader's outfit? Oh, right, anything else. We're not saying that women can't leave the kitchen, by any stretch of the imagination. You can go ahead and delete that half-written comment right now. Put away your Jump to Conclusions Mat.
We're of the opinion, however, that a fictional character called "Cooking Mama" whose sole purpose is to scold you when you screw up a recipe probably doesn't have any business holding pompons. We're pretty sure that's a reasonable observation. She's not a real person at all.
Rather than being put off by the weirdness of the dress-up capability, we look forward to juxtaposing out-of-place fashion into our cooking minigames. How ridiculous will we be able to make Mama look? Can we put her in a space suit?
Other than the random non-cooking activity, Cooking Mama 2 appears to be shaping up quite nicely into another kitchen-based minigame festival. It's one of the winners of the genre, in our opinion, and it's got ice cream this time! Who doesn't like ice cream?
Majesco may be bringing forth a sequel to their smash hit Cooking Mama, but apparently it wasn't enough to bring them into the black. Hopefully, that'll change with the upcoming release of Cooking Mama 2, but the Q3 financial results show the company's profits are down to $10 million from $12.4 million last year.
The DS is an important platform for the company, as 66% of their total sales come from games on the handheld. And with the first Cooking Mama game selling over 500,000 units, the company has high hopes for its sequel, as well.
Why can't publishers be more charitable with preorder gifts in the states? We're doing them a favor whenever we put down an advance for one of their games, giving retailers an idea of how many they should order to stock their shelves. Japan and Korea seem to get reservation rewards for almost every release!
The latest preorder prizes, a branded system pouch and a stylus set, come with EA's SimCity DS and MySims, both due later this month for Korea. Publisher Fujitsu was more creative with its Cooking Mama gift, offering a limited edition pair of cooking mitts to any gamer who reserves the kitchen-themed minigame collection. Hand over five bucks and head past the post break for more photos of the bonus items.
Cooking Mama 2 knows how to attract an audience: with virtually delicious fake pie. Who can look at that picture of an apple pie and resist the urge to pretend to want to eat it?
Actually, we've never gotten hungry from playing Cooking Mama. The gameplay tasks are so accelerated and the final images so cartoony that we rarely associate our creations with actual food. It's a good thing to, because we wouldn't know how to cook three-quarters of the menu without a touchscreen. Check out the link if you'd like to see the whole pie-making sequence! SPOILER: Apples are inside the apple pie.
It'll be coming out November 15 in Japan, and we expect that since the game is more popular in the US, Office Create and Majesco will do their best to make sure it comes out over here as close to that date as possible.
Posted Aug 15th 2007 2:00PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: News
Majesco announced that since the September release of Cooking Mama, they've shipped 500,000 units. Quite a surprise for a budget DS game about cooking!
It's exactly what Majesco needed after almost being sunk by Advent Rising and Psychonauts. They decided to focus more on budget games for handheld systems, and they got lucky right out of the gate. Given their success with the last game, it's no shock that Majesco has chosen Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends. We've liked Majesco ever since they started making Sega Genesis 3 systems and selling them for $20. Which, by the way, is another example of small and cheap working well for the company.
Posted Aug 14th 2007 5:20PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: News
We knew that Europe and Japan were going to be returning to Mama's kitchen (which is apparently enormous if it accommodates the entirety of both Japan and Europe), and we expected similar announcements for the rest of the world. Majesco is, as expected returning to the table to provide US gamers with a second helping of Cooking Mama, and to provide bloggers more excuses to mix cooking metaphors.
The new game, Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends, will contain 80 new recipes and 150 different cooking procedures. It's also got single-card multiplayer and the feature that nobody even knew they wanted: the opportunity to decorate your kitchen and give Mama new clothes.
Mama will have to share shelf space with Ubisoft's Imagine Master Chef, part of its Imagine line of cheaply licensed, sloppily-packaged games "for girls." Don't pick up the wrong one by mistake!
To those who were hoping yesterday for something different from Cooking Mama 2, we hate to break it to you: the sequel looks pretty much the same, just with the added bonus of multiplayer and more content. You'll just have to wait for the eventual Cooking Navi localization for help from your DS in your real kitchen. However, if pleasing Mama by putting together tasty creations made you as happy as it made her, then you're in luck. We're just thrilled to see a sequel coming out for both Nintendo systems instead of jumping ships, like certain franchises. For once, we get to shake our fist at you lucky Europeans on this one ... though we're sure Majesco will probably pick it up again for gamers here in the U.S. Slip past the break to see the scan with the latest.
505 Games has announced their intentions to bring back the mama, as they get set to publish a sequel to Cooking Mama on both the DS and Wii next year.
The new game hopes to satisfy cooks that checked out the first game, offering up new recipes, minigames and more of that adorable mama herself. If you've got a friend that won't shut up about how expensive their kitchen cutlery is (and how great they are at using it), then take them on in a new head-to-head multiplayer mode.
Any aspiring cooks looking to take another go at this early next year?
Posted Mar 17th 2007 12:00PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: News
Majesco Entertainment never really stopped publishing video games, but it was a very real possibility after its troubles last year. Following the disappointing sales of its banner titles, Psychonauts and Advent Rising, stock values plummeted, CEO Carl Yankowski resigned, and several class-action lawsuits were filed by the company's shareholders. Majesco decided to turn its focus on "value and handheld video games," and has been slowly recovering from its losses with this strategy.
So why should we be cheering on the company that brought us throwaway games like F-24 Stealth Fighter and Super Black Bass Fishing? While you're right to shake your head at those titles, Majesco was also the publisher behind niche gems for the DS like Nanostray, Age of Empires: The Age of Kings, and Cooking Mama. And for that, we wish them the best of luck.
If you're a European who loves their DS, odds are you've seen videos of games released in the US and Japan and asked yourself "how many years will it take for the game to get here?" We know your pain, as you fine gaming folk often get the shortest end of an already very short stick, however you may at least take solace in knowing that Cooking Mama is releasing to your region in February of next year.
Like the tortoise, 
Mama's been busy in the kitchen, not only cooking up tasty virtual treats, but also fat stacks of cash. 505 Games has announced that the franchise has sold over a million copies, becoming 505 Games' most successful franchise to day. Releasing first for the DS, another entry was later released on the Wii, cementing Mama as one of the region's most marketable mugs. Good for her!
Siliconera reports that everyone's favorite cooking/minigame/
What's more appropriate for the kitchen than a cheerleader's outfit? Oh, right, anything else. We're not saying that women can't leave the kitchen, by any stretch of the imagination. You can go ahead and delete that half-written comment right now. Put away your Jump to Conclusions Mat.
Majesco may be bringing forth 
We knew that Europe and Japan were going to be 
To those who were hoping yesterday for something different from Cooking Mama 2, we hate to break it to you: the 
505 Games has announced their intentions to bring back the mama, as they get set to publish a sequel to Cooking Mama on both the DS and Wii next year.
Majesco Entertainment
If you're a European who loves their DS, odds are you've seen videos of games released in the US and Japan and asked yourself "how many years will it take for the game to get here?" We know your pain, as you fine gaming folk often get the shortest end of an already very short stick, however you may at least take solace in knowing that Cooking Mama is releasing to your region in February of next year.
