Nintendo News | Europe, Prepare to Train Your Faces!

After not proving anywhere near as popular in Japan as its other training games, Nintendo's Face Training, which comes bundled with a camera and special stand, is now heading to Europe in time for Christmas, along with a special advertising campaign. The new product helps to strengthen face muscles and will be marketed mainly at the female market in an effort to further broaden the userbase of the DS.

Face Training works by having players hold the system in the book form, similar to with Brain Training, and shows various instructions on the left/top screen as your face is shown on the right/bottom screen via a special camera that slots into the GBA port of the handheld.

In addition to this, Sight Training is coming in just a couple of weeks and Cubed3 will have a special 'Eye Age' diary up very soon to detail the game further and see if a gamer's visual perception can indeed be improved over a period of time.

With the 66% of all DS users in the UK being women (and the DS total now topping four million in this country alone), it is no wonder Nintendo will be mounting a female-friendly advertising campaign in the run-up to Christmas that features not only Nicole Kidman (as seen in the two More Brain Training adverts already), but also daytime television favourites Fern Britton and Philip Schofield, Julie Walters and Zoe Ball.

But DS owners are not the only ones getting in on the act as Nintendo has diving game Endless Ocean coming on Wii in November, where players guide a diver through tropical waters, exploring the environment and stroking fish, plus the hotly-tipped for great success 'Wii Fit', which hits Japan in early December, where players use the special Wii Balance Board for yoga, exercise in general, as well as various 'fun' activities.

"The DS console, followed by the launch of the Wii, has helped us break into new markets. [We found] 85 per cent of our customers over the age of 45 had never played computer games before the DS. In all, two-thirds of our adult user base for the DS is female, while a third of users of our popular Big Brain Academy game on the Wii are mums."
- David Yarnton, General Manager of Nintendo UK.

Stay tuned for further updates...