The dish on parenting ... check out the new ParentDish!
Add to: My AOL, MyYahoo, Google, Bloglines
Joystiq presents
Posts with tag nicole-kidman

DS Daily: Marketing the product

You know, we were thinking about the celebrity DS endorsement put on by Nintendo over at "I Play For Me" and we wondered how effective such marketing actually is? Everyone and their grandmother has at least 4 DS Lites and 4 copies of Brain Age and Brain Age 2 to accompany their handhelds, so what could this accomplish? Does the thing even need to be advertised, even on the web?

Then again, we thought that perhaps thinking about advertising is a wasted effort. If you're anything like us, you're too busy playing with one of your DS Lites to watch television. So let's switch gears.

If you were in charge of creating an advertising campaign for the DS, what would it be like? Would you sell out and have a commercial starring Chuck Norris? Would you travel to a small, mid-west town and hand out bundles to all the folk residing within?

Brain Training celebrates 100th week in UK charts



Every Saturday, we document sales charts from the UK and other European countries, and every week, there's one game that appears in the UK top ten without fail: Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training. The sheer longevity of Brain Training's stay in the charts is genuinely exceptional, with this week marking the game's 100th consecutive week in the British charts.

Since its June 2006 release, us Brits have seen the likes of Chris Tarrant (in happier times), Nicole Kidman and Patrick Stewart shilling Nintendo's mind-honing software, but we're curious: has it worked? Well, decide for yourselves.

Doctor argues benefits of Brain Training, probably has a brain age of 63

Nicole Kidman's endorsement of Nintendo's software for the DS has one doctor in particular crying "humbug." Dr. Jason Braithwaite, a cognitive neuroscientist (maybe after playing enough Brain Age, we'll figure out what that is exactly), seems to be of the mind that using the non-game exhibits "no conclusive evidence showing that the continued use of these devices is linked to any measurable and general improvements in cognition." This all stems from him seeing one of Kidman's adverts, where she states "I have quickly found that training my brain [with Nintendo's Dr Kawashima's Brain Training computer game] is a great way to keep my mind feeling young"

"Practice at any task should lead to some form of improvement for that specific task," he adds. But, we wonder if that applies here. Sure, individual tasks in repetition will undoubtedly cause one to improve at completing them, but the exercises in Nintendo's title are varied and the whole goal of the game isn't to sit there for hours on end, practicing individual exercises. The daily training, along with the sudoku, and other items that make up the whole package come together to bring forth the improvement felt by the user. These are small sections of the user's day devoted to the working the brain, when the time could otherwise be used to waste brain power by watching TV or, if it were us and we were afforded spare time in our day, sleep.

Gallery: Brain Age 2

More Brain Training ads in the wild

Looks like Nicole Kidman's European campaign for More Brain Training is still going strong -- at least, in the city of Dordrecht in South Holland. Even through the reflection of the train station on the glass, her concentration is clear ... but hey, she's got to get that brain age down somehow.

Head over to Flickr to see Arjan in't Veld's full-sized picture, and feel free to let us know when you start seeing Patrick Stewart pop up everywhere on behalf of the DS. There can never be enough Patrick Stewart!

From Face Training and yoga to the world


We couldn't help but giggle when we saw this article on "facial yoga" that described it as the hot new craze. It's certainly not new to us DS hipsters; after all, we've already got a game dedicated to stretching and firming our faces, and since the practice is apparently the latest it-exercise (despite being around for years, much like regular yoga), it seems likely that Otona no DS Kao Training may sweep in on the heels of Let's Yoga and hit the United States.

Of course, then the real question becomes: will Nintendo (and others, like Konami, the company behind Let's Yoga) start to change the way they advertise the DS in the United States? We can't help but wonder if it seems unlikely; after all, we still have no official "face" for Brain Age beyond our favorite disembodied head, and it's rare that we see advertisements for our favorite piece of hardware on the scale that we see those for the Wii.

Continue reading From Face Training and yoga to the world

Homebrew weekTesting out Let's YogaDS Fanswag!
Features
Another Week in ... (36)
DS Daily (437)
DS Fanboy Lite (35)
DS Fanboy poll (39)
Friday video (63)
Game Night (138)
Metareview (47)
Promotional Consideration (49)
Show and Tell (54)
The DS Life (48)
What are you playing? (83)
Bits
Accessories (124)
Downloads (56)
Fan stuff (1359)
Features (253)
GBA (123)
Hacks (77)
Homebrew (193)
How-tos (65)
Imports (774)
Interviews (137)
Meta (110)
News (2854)
Nintendo Wi-Fi (175)
Reviews (167)
Sales (164)
Screens (781)
Video (582)
Rumors (163)

RESOURCES

RSS NEWSFEEDS

Powered by Blogsmith

Featured Galleries

Matchman
World Destruction
Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff
Carnival Games
Ketsui DS
Dragon Quest IV boxarts
Dragon Quest IV
Driving Theory Training
Picture Walkthrough: How to set up your R4DS

 

Most Commented On (14 days)

Recent Comments

Weblogs, Inc. Network

  • Autos
    • Autoblog
    • AutoblogGreen
    • Autoblog Spanish
    • Autoblog Chinese
    • Autoblog Simplified Chinese
  • Technology
    • Download Squad
    • Engadget
    • Engadget HD
    • Engadget Mobile
    • Engadget Chinese
    • Engadget Simplified Chinese
    • Engadget Japanese
    • Engadget Spanish
    • Engadget Polska
    • Switched
    • TUAW (Apple)
  • Lifestyle
    • AisleDash
    • DIY Life
    • Gadling
    • Green Daily
    • Luxist
    • ParentDish
    • Slashfood
    • Styledash
    • That's Fit
  • Gaming
    • Joystiq
    • DS Fanboy
    • Massively
    • Nintendo Wii Fanboy
    • PS3 Fanboy
    • PSP Fanboy
    • WoW Insider
    • Xbox 360 Fanboy
  • Entertainment
    • Cinematical
    • TV Squad
  • Finance
    • BloggingBuyouts
    • BloggingStocks
    • WalletPop
  • Sports
    • FanHouse Main
    • NFL
    • NBA
    • MLB
    • NCAA Football
    • NCAA Basketball
    • NASCAR
    • NHL
    • Golf
    • Fantasy Football
  • Also on AOL
    • African-American Culture
    • Cars
    • Games
    • Maps
    • Money
    • Movies
    • Music
    • News
    • Radio
    • Sports
    • Television
    • Travel

Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in:

PS3 Fanboy
  • Sony announces in-game advertising possibilities; EA jumps on board
  • Insomniac opens second studio in North Carolina
  • Plug 'n play: tablets work well with PS3
WOW Insider
  • WoW Insider is looking for a shady, sneaky, back-stabbing columnist
  • Breakfast Topic: Rerolling our roots
  • Blizzard changes the description of the Death Knight talent trees
Xbox 360 Fanboy
  • COD4 has now sold over 10 million copies
  • Civilization Revolution demo hitting Thursday
  • Fallout 3 Collectors Edition lunch box and contents
Nintendo Wii Fanboy
  • Now you're playing with (a device which consumes very little) power!
  • Wii Warm Up: Cosplaying agenda
  • Kart this cake to your wedding
PSP Fanboy
  • Yggdra Union likely coming to the States via Atlus
  • Even the Space Invaders Extreme site is ... extreme
  • New Naruto Heroes 2 vids are 'Jutsu' beautiful