Over the last 1.5 years Japan has seen a new boom of so called “Brain Trainer Games”. Japan is a nation of eager learners ready to develop and learn new skills even after retirement. This is also true for brain training and education games. “Dr Kawashimas Brain Trainer” for the Nintendo DS, which launched in 2005 was an instant success and kept its position as the number one selling videogame in Japan for months.

DS the new learning device
As of July 2007 30% of all published DS titles were so called “educational titles” and the best selling videogame in Japan in July was the DS “Eye and Mind Trainer”.

The share of educational software for devices like the DS is expected to reach 40-50% within the next 12 months and the target users are no longer kids but mainly females over 20.

Education a la DS
Here is a small overview of recently released titles:
-The cooking show DS in cooperation with NHK (recipe collection, cooking videos)
-History of Japan (interactive history book and history quiz)
-Beautiful skin navigator (a skin analyzing and treatment software for women)
-Onzen Navi (hot spring guide book)
-Stock Trading DS (simulation and training software for online stock trading)

Mobile phones turn into mobile trainers
This development is not a game console exclusive also mobile phones are turning more and more into mobile learning tools:
Companies like Sega, one of the first brain trainer providers already released mobile phone versions of their brain trainer games back in 2004 and content provider Dwangoo also launched a mobile phone brain trainer in 2005. Many other followed and it can be assumed that the share of educational mobile phone games in the mobile phone gaming market is now around 20%. Educational mobile phone applications and services will continue to see a steady growth within the next 10-12 months.