Nintendo for Baby Boomers

This is taken from an article by Beth Snyder Builk from Ad Age

Nintendo’s newest video game is a workout for your brain. And baby boomers will snap it up.

At least that’s what Nintendo hopes will happen this spring with the U.S. video-game release of “Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day” in April and “Big Brain Academy” in May. Judging by booming sales in Japan and enthusiastic previews by European and U.S. reviewers, Nintendo likely won’t be disappointed -- though it does face a challenge marketing to a demographic that defines games as Monopoly and Scrabble.

Who Needs Brain Exercises?
Both the Japanese and U.S. Brain Age games are based on the work of popular Japanese neuroscientist and author Ryuta Kawashima, whose studies show that certain reading and math exercises help stimulate the brain. He and some other researchers touted by Nintendo contend mental sharpness can be strengthened with brain exercises.

How Brain Age Works
In Brain Age, players try to quickly complete exercises including simple math equations, reading aloud, drawing pictures and memorizing numbers. The game then scores the results on an age scale of 20-70 to reveal the user’s “brain age.” Big Brain Academy is similar but allows for up to eight competitors. Both are played on the Nintendo DS system, which is dual screen writeable device, and both will be priced around $20.

Closing Thoughts
Baby Boomers are approaching the retirement age, so I guess they will need something to do...why not join their grandkids on Nintendo...although, I agree that marketing a video game to a Scrabble/Monopoly/Life generation may be difficult.

Tags: Nintendo , Baby Boomers , Retirement , video game , brain exercises , Ryuta Kawashima , Marketing , technology