Reach out and touch someone...
...with a stylus. Nintendo is busy plugging their "Touch Generations" campaign, their attempt to reach out to the "mushy middle" of gaming: the 35-and-over crowd. With titles like Nintendogs and Brain Age moving off shelves faster than a Metroid being chased by a freeze-beam toting Samus, it seems that the non-gamers are really taking notice.
Starting in June,
Nintendo will begin branding its more casual Nintendo DS(TM) titles under the new Touch Generations
label. The Touch Generations brand will include titles that anyone can pick up and play, even with
little or no experience with video games. It represents one of the many ways that Nintendo is
making it easy for new demographics of people to be introduced to video games. Three new games,
including a second brain-training game, will be added to the Touch Generations category in June.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060530/LATU022LOGO ) "We remain committed to
turning video games into an inclusive mass medium that everyone can enjoy," says George Harrison,
Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Touch
Generations will help novices and newcomers identify the fun and uniquely engaging experiences that
are available only on Nintendo DS." These current and upcoming games will be identified by a
distinctive logo, and will help non-gamers and casual gamers quickly identify which games might be
appropriate for them. Touch Generations will be one element of Nintendo's multimillion-dollar
campaign to get more and more people interested in video games. The first seven titles in the
Touch Generations brand include the following upcoming games: * Big Brain Academy(TM) (launches
June 5): The second title in the brain-training series tests players in five areas: thinking,
memorization, computation, analysis and identification. * Magnetica(TM) (launches June 5): A
simple puzzle game challenges players to connect and eliminate like-colored marbles before
they reach the goal. * Sudoku Gridmaster (launches June 26): This version of the wildly popular
puzzle grid features more than 400 sudoku puzzles, all of which were hand-picked by the
original creators of sudoku. Touch Generations also will include the following already-released
titles: * Brain Age(TM): Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day (launched April 17): More than 5
million people around the world test their brains daily in areas like math, counting, reading
and memorization. Many purchasers include older people who had never previously played a
video game. * Nintendogs(TM) (launched Aug. 22, 2005): The hugely popular puppy simulation
and communication program lets users pet their pups using the touch screen and teach them
commands using the microphone. * Tetris(R) DS (launched March 20): Nintendo's greatest
characters team up with one of the most popular puzzle games of all time. * True Swing Golf
(launched Jan. 23): In this realistic golf game, players simply slide the stylus across the
touch screen to strike the ball and send it flying. Touch Generations titles can be enjoyed
by hard-core gamers and beginners alike, as evidenced by the positive reviews the gaming media have
given to many of these titles. But as Nintendo adds new titles to the Touch Generations category,
the two groups will be able to come together and identify their common ground. The worldwide
innovator in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan,
manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Nintendo DS(TM), Game Boy(R) Advance and
Nintendo GameCube(TM) systems, and upcoming Wii(TM) console. Since 1983, Nintendo has sold more
than 2 billion video games and more than 360 million hardware units globally, and has created
industry icons like Mario(TM), Donkey Kong(R), Metroid(R), Zelda(TM) and Pokemon(R). A wholly owned
subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for
Nintendo's operations in the Western Hemisphere. For more information about Nintendo, visit the
company's Web site at www.nintendo.com.
