Continuing our discussion of educational uses for the Nintendo DS, Newsweek’s International Edition has an article by Akiko Kashiwagi on the phenomenon in Japan.
If you see someone on the Tokyo subway fiddling with a Nintendo DS handheld, chances are he’s not just playing videogames, but engaged in self-improvement. In recent months millions of Japanese have been using their thumbs to sharpen their minds, thanks to new educational programs introduced for the Nintendo DS.
Kashiwagi includes a few statistics that may prove reference worthy:
The top-selling programs [in Japan] concentrate on cultural literacy, vocabulary building, math drills and English-language instruction. According to the latest figures from Enterbrain, a Tokyo videogame magazine publisher, as of June educational and training software has sold nearly 20 million copies.
Other figures Kashiwagi mentions: one in seven Japanese own a DS; Nintendo uses “video game tricks” to ensure the learning games are fun for users; English Training, a popular educational program for the DS, uses the hardware’s dual screens, handwriting and voice recognition to help drill and instruct users in learning to speak English; English Training has sold 2.4 million copies in Japan, and an additional .5 million copies in Europe and Korea.
References
Kashiwagi, A. (2007, September 17). Learning game. Newsweek International. [Online.] Available: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20643579/site/newsweek/
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