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Train Your Brain With Kinect
Get smart.Published: 13:45, 08/09/2010 by Dan Lee.
31Kinect is set to get its own brain training game with the dubiously titled ‘New Brain Training: Answer With Your Body.’ From the video shown you will get to take part in a game of Pac-Man, or swot some balloons or even position your arms like the hands of a clock.
So far only a Japanese release date for the Bandai Namco title has been confirmed – 20th November.
Source: Kotaku
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08/09/2010 at 13:50
Member since: Feb 2009
shovelware!
08/09/2010 at 13:52
Member since: Mar 2009
This sounds more like an arcade compliation than any form of brain training :S
Ciao guys, am off to play some space invaders to train my brain :)
(*Based on the text and having not seen the videos above*)
08/09/2010 at 14:00
Member since: Jan 2010
Seriously?
08/09/2010 at 14:01
Member since: Oct 2008
Inevitable. Expect alot more like this in the near future…
08/09/2010 at 14:08
Member since: Dec 2009
oh no.
08/09/2010 at 14:14
Member since: Feb 2009
Good god. It begins.
08/09/2010 at 14:51
Member since: Forever
Brain Training… sold over 20m copies, and was a real system seller.
’nuff said!
08/09/2010 at 15:25
Member since: Jun 2009
Definitely will sell like you said, just a shame they had to stoop to selling this crap. Funny though, I watched a program the other day about the brain training on DS, and it said that it doesn’t actually do anything at all, it just keeps your brain awake. Doesn’t actually make you brainier or anything.
08/09/2010 at 15:44
Member since: Oct 2008
See – a game so big they make television programmes about it. When was the last time you saw a documentary on telly about Uncharted 2?
08/09/2010 at 16:53
Member since: Forever
@bilbo
I know it does nothing for your brain, but it is the reason that my mum & dad bought a DS each… my mum then became addicted to (and completed) Zelda & my dad can’t stop playing Prof Layton & its various clones.
I wouldn’t specifically call it crap, it kept me entertained for about 5mins once – but its as popular as hell
08/09/2010 at 15:25
Member since: Oct 2008
Brain Training DS is/was amazing and was a phenomenon.
But it sold a £20 game + £110 DS to people who liked to do sudoku on public transport and old people. Selling a £130 system plus a £140 peripheral and a £30+ game to people to get them to jump in front of their telly? It’s a different proposition, especially at a time when the market has been flooded with knock-offs.
08/09/2010 at 15:29
Member since: Sep 2009
cc_star don’t take this the wrong way but your sub-title should be changed to ‘Team TSA: Kinect Defence’. It seems that you are seriously over compensating for the general ‘meh’ attitude of TSA members towards Kinect! Every Kinect article has you in there defending it to the hilt, again no offence meant, just an observation I’ve had over the last few months…
As for this news, it’s no surprise given MS have firmly targeted that market with complete disregard to their current userbase. Say what you will about each competing system but at least Sony are trying to make Move appeal to their existing userbase – I can’t see any current 360 owner cancelling their Halo Reach preorder in favour of the likes of Brain Training and Get Fit with Mel B – it’s the type of shovelware PS3 owners are hoping Move will try to avoid (although some shovelware is inevitable on all motion based systems).
Come to think of it I can’t see any Brain Training player paying £340 for a new version of the game either…
08/09/2010 at 15:53
Member since: Feb 2009
I wouldn’t say his statement was defending Kinect, just reasoning for this particular piece of crap.
08/09/2010 at 16:45
Member since: Forever
@smokeybeef – correctomundo dude although I’m not defending – just pointing out its raison d’etre
@Apnomis
You got all that from a throwaway sentence – wow you’re deep maaaaan, real deep.
That sentence is hardly defending Kinect to hilt as you say, is it?
Also, calling a 20m+ selling game (20m sales on a single freakin’ platform) shovelware just because it doesn’t conform to your taste seems a bit weird.
Now for the Kinect bit (this isn’t defending it to the hilt just pointing out some key facts, that some people may not be able to see/haven’t realised/may disagree with)
Microsoft aren’t trying to appeal to their existing userbase, they’re quite happy for Halo, Gears, Fable & a Forza Special Edition and of course CoD, NfS & many others to sell to their ‘core’ and marketing Kinect as a separate platform has distinct advantages:
I could go on to explain what I mean, but the third page of this article on Move, by Digital Foundry explains it far better than I could, you can read it here. (I recommend reading the whole article actually, its a great piece on the past, present & future of Move.)
Move has been marketed fantastically to existing owners, thats why we all love it, the marketing team have done their job fantastically, we’ve all marvelled at the tech demos, we’ve all bought in to its technical brilliance and what the future might hold, but cutting through all that I do have the concern about Sony not putting their weight behind it, by committing either Naughty Dog, Santa Monica, Guerilla, Media Molecule, Evolution or anyone of their AAA studios to make a Move exclusive title which will blow the sh*t out of Move’s rivals… will the softly softly approach of ‘its only an option’ pay off? Where’s the killer app? We’re one week away from launch and apart from a few articles where someone who works at a newspaper has received a free one in a presskit, where is the coverage?
Kinect’s focus on titles like a variety of fitness games (Wii Fit, need I say more) Dance Central (Just Dance is just about the biggest single platform game of the year) Kinectimals (Nintendogs is one of the biggest selling games ever) and Brain Training (again one of the biggest selling titles ever) It is completely obvious they don’t give 2 f#cks about Sony & Move, but instead they are 100% focused on Nintendo’s audience of 50m Wii owners & 120m DS owners. Whether they’ve made a mistake or not remains to be seen, but their target market is huge, especially as they’ve removed the ‘mum barrier’ of “which button do I press again”.
The approach by both companies couldn’t be more different (and the lessons from it, should form part of a marketing degree in years to come) but just because one isn’t to my taste and I don’t go around shouting “ya you suck, nothing but a shovelware kids toy” in every available comments section doesn’t mean I defend it to the hilt – it just means I can see both sides of the fence.
Please don’t take anything I say as slight against Move or anyone’s opinions of it, Move is a technical marvel and looks to be a great bit of kit where the possibilities are endless, and I will be down the shop buying 2 sticks on day 1. Something which not everyone who picks fault with what I say will be doing.
ps, yes, I know – it was even longer than I thought)
08/09/2010 at 22:12
Member since: Sep 2009
No I didn’t get it from that sentence, I just smile when I see you reply to one of these topics as in a tide of negativity your comments are generally the most positive – not necessarily this one so much as others I’ve seen. You’re probably just playing Devil’s Advocate (or maybe you are genuinely excited about getting Kinect) but if you were to rank people’s opinion on this site towards Kinect you’d be top of the league by some distance. As I said, no offence was meant by it.
I guess I’m just an old fashioned gamer that knows the day the market is swamped with fitness games, shovelware and movie tie-ins because that’s what sell well is the day I stop being a gamer.
As for the article I’ve read it before and I agree with it – I’ve always said Sony made a major slip up not developing a two-handed solution, I’ve said it countless times in the comments of this site. But I still think it’s a less risky strategy than the 360′s so called ‘new platform launch’ to a completely new market for them, but only time will tell I suppose. And as the article points out Sony have a wealth of 1st party studios to prop up Move with exclusives (two-handed or otherwise) if needs be. What will happen to Kinect if initial sales are disappointing, how long will 3rd parties be willing to develop what essentially need to be Kinect exclusive titles in a climate where most devs can’t even afford to do exclusives for the entire 360 (or PS3) platform? It’s far less of an ask to put in a dual control system for Move if that’s what it came down to…
Also as for the shovelware comment that word is just as valid for games and releases that cash-in on a brand, games ported to other platforms with little thought, games that have had so little care or creativity shown when creating them they could have been compiled with a shovel etc. In short the amount of sales of other versions is irrelevant to the term shovelware. In my opinion a game designed to serve the job of a crossword in a newspaper – i.e. a product aimed at people to pick up and play in short spells on the train or in their lunch hour (thus the reason for it’s success), being ported to a home console where the simple and intuitive ‘write an answer’ controls are replaced with ‘stand up in your living room and point at the answer’ controls is a prime candidate for a shovelware title, though obviously this is a bit of an assumption for an unreleased game. As you say this is Microsoft grasping at any concept that has sold well on a Nintendo platform and trying to mimic it – an iPod version of Brain Training would make more sense.
But anyway I’m not wanting to make a big thing about this, I guess we agree to disagree, it’s all opinion and speculation at the end of the day and only time will tell who had the right strategy – and as you say it will make a fascinating study subject in years to come…
09/09/2010 at 01:56
Member since: Apr 2010
@ Apnomis
I thought the same, mate. Everytime there’s a Kinect article I always scroll around to find cc’s comments to see what lengths he’ll go to to defend it.
Granted, cc, brain trainer is a system seller and shifted 20m copies but are people really going to cough up £300 for the system and kinect plus another 40 clams for the game when they have it on the Wii and DS already? No, of course they aren’t.
Kinect doesn’t have anything going for it at the moment and I can’t see any potential for it in the future either. Microsoft have something they COULD do something very very good with if they took their time and developed a sensible user interface for and maybe bit the bullet and included a controller. Their stubbornness and greed will lose them many many hardcore gaming fans and I’m sure while they may win over a few more casual gamers the people that have defended them though thick and thin and through countless RROD’s will turn their backs on them.. and rightfully so. I’d do the same to Sony if the shoe was on the other foot.
I’m buying Move on Day One because Sony have showed me that their new peripheral is versatile enough to be appreciated by myself, my girlfriend and even my 4 year old nephew. If I still owned a 360 at this point in time I’d be thinking about jumping ship as their focus seems to have put me in the background completely while my girlfriend and nephew are all that seem to matter for them.
My mum owns a Wii for Wii fit, I showed her the Move and Kinect videos just to gauge a reaction. With her owning a Wii she was quite taken to the Move for obvious reasons but showing her Kinect her words were “You do it all with your hands? Oh, no.. that’d annoy me, that.” She also brought up valid points like what’d happen if she got an itch or tried to shoo away a fly. It seems even the most unassuming casual gamers can see past Kinect’s sugar coating and can see where it’s problems are going to lie.
09/09/2010 at 02:00
Member since: Apr 2010
Plus, I’d warrant calling a 20million selling game shovelware when I’d put money on the fact that atleast 19 million copies of that game are sat gathering dust after getting a bit of a play because Auntie Joan doesn’t even remember how to turn her Wii on.
Just because it’s sold well it doesn’t make it good or even a good game.
09/09/2010 at 13:56
Member since: Sep 2009
“It seems that you are seriously over compensating for the general ‘meh’ attitude of TSA members towards Kinect! Every Kinect article has you in there defending it to the hilt, again no offence meant, just an observation I’ve had over the last few months…”
I agree with this. Guaranteed where there’s been any Kinect-bashing (which itself is OTT), CC is there pitching in on the defense, mainly trying to dress it up as being reasonable. Whether you genuinely believe everything you say about Kinect, or whether you just get wound up by the haters, there is definitely a feeling of thinly-veiled agenda there.
09/09/2010 at 14:19
Member since: Forever
*sigh*
I firmly believe Brain Training has sold 20m copies, which is what I said before everyone interpreted that as being a Kinect fanboy simply because it doesn’t suit their agenda of dissing Kinect just because the games shown off so far are aimed at taking market share from Nintendo & have turned their back on ‘core gamers’ who typically own a PS3 or 360..
Thats hardly defending Kinect, just a statement of fact regarding the popularity of Brain Training.
Its says more about others than it does me, that people took a statement of fact about Brain Training as defending Kinect. Odd.
Being able to see both sides of the fence isn’t defending Kinect, nor is it anything else. If anyone tries to paint some impartial comments about Kinect (read: not slating it) as defending it then it says more about their agenda than mine.
*shakes head, with a slight hint of despair*
10/09/2010 at 03:25
Member since: Apr 2010
There’s no need for the *’comment’* stuff, cc. It’s condescending. As a writer for the site I’d expect more.
We never said your comments about the brain training game selling millions of copies made you a fanboy, simply the fact that you have to put such a positive spin on every Kinect article that features on this site. Like I said, and you obviously didn’t read, Kinect has potential which is not being realised because of Microsoft’s stubbornness and greed. If you read what I put you’d see that I’d say the same about Kinect if it were a Sony product, but thankfully it isn’t
Also the initial comment you made:
“Brain Training… sold over 20m copies, and was a real system seller.
’nuff said!”
Don’t you see how people could interpret that as you being a bit of a fanboy arsehole? Specially, “nuff said!” I read that as “My argument is all you need to know, do not try make any more of it.” which is bollocks, especially on a discussion.
I don’t like fanboy attitudes (but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt) and I certainly don’t like being condescended to so please refrain in future.
08/09/2010 at 15:00
Member since: Mar 2009
Yep, if I bought this I would definetly know my brain needed more training. Those sections matching your arms with hands on a clock remind me too much of primary school.
08/09/2010 at 15:06
Member since: Jun 2009
Oh now trying the old DS crapware option because they know decent games wont sell Kinect anymore lol
08/09/2010 at 15:40
Member since: Jun 2010
Must have sucked she was aiming for a 14 yet she got a 15 – X