Beyond Pokémon:
Nintendo DS Goes
To School in Japan
From Programs That Turn
It Into a Reference Book
July 11, 2007; Page A1
KYOTO, Japan -- Every morning at 8:50, eighth-grade teachers at Otokoyama Higashi Junior High School bring out plastic baskets stacked with electronic devices. For 10 minutes, 122 students use styluses to scrawl English words like "woman" and "tree" on touch screens. Electronic voices beep responses like "Cool!" if the children spell the word correctly, and a mocking "Come on!" if they get it wrong.
The students are tapping away on Nintendo Co.'s DS videogame machine, a portable device customarily reserved for games like Pokémon and Super Mario Bros.
"Work sheets were such a pain," says Minori Yamanaka, a 13-year-old student, during a short break between classes. "These exercises feel like a game."
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| Study tool: Nintendo President Satoru Iwata with the DS videogame machine. |
Behind the fastest-selling portable videogame player in Japan is an unusual shift in the culture of gadgets: People are clamoring for it not just for games, but also to keep a household budget, play the guitar, and study the Buddhist scripture Heart Sutra. Since its introduction in 2004, the DS, which responds to writing and speech, has spurred software makers to fill the Japanese market with an eclectic array of reference guides, digital books and study tools.
Of the 500-odd DS software titles released or in the works so far, only about 200 are traditional videogames. Nintendo is quick to license uses of its DS device, which is also sold in the U.S., so long as they aren't violent or otherwise objectionable. Most of the software isn't available overseas, though Nintendo has released a few products like a "brain-training" quiz game called Brain Age and says it is considering releasing more. Game publishers believe the trend will eventually move outside Japan.
Based in Kyoto, Nintendo has sold nearly 18 million DS units in Japan, more than triple the sales of rival Sony Corp.'s PlayStation Portable, according to market research firm Enterbrain Co. More than 60% of the DS units were bought by people who don't think of themselves as videogame users, Enterbrain said.
Electronic Arts Inc., a U.S. publisher best known for graphically rich, fast-action games like "Madden NFL" and the "Need for Speed" racing series is now tiptoeing into the world of references, launching this month in Japan the first of a three-part series on wine, sake and cocktails. Electronic Arts says it is considering a version on wines for the French market.
Nintendo officials, also riding the success of the Wii videogame console introduced last November, say they are still committed to games. "The popularity of the DS shows that the line between entertainment and education is getting blurry, but consumers are still buying games like Brain Age because they're fun, so it's still the entertainment factor that is important," says spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa.
Nintendo's big rival, Sony, isn't following the DS into books and references. Sony is trying to attract new game users to its PlayStation Portable machines with easy-to-play games such as virtual tennis. It says it will continue to focus on games that show off its high-quality screen and advanced technology.
DS, which stands for Dual Screen, marked Nintendo's first attempt before the Wii to lure customers who weren't big game players. Unlike the company's Gameboy games, which asked players -- children mainly -- to dexterously use a plus-shaped control pad and buttons while peering into a small screen, the DS was easier to use, with voice-recognition technology and two big screens, one of which recognizes handwriting.
Adults began to take interest when Nintendo released the quiz game Brain Age, which was designed to stimulate rusty minds with a daily quiz that tests reflexes, memorization and speed-arithmetic. A subsequent English dictation game that helps improve listening and spelling cemented the demand for a new genre of DS software.
"Who would have thought an English game would be a million seller?" says Nintendo's Mr. Minagawa.
Soon, a slew of other software companies caught on to the idea and came out with their own versions of nongame software. One early DS fan was Yukimitsu Hayashi, an assistant manager in Kyoto's Yawata school district, which now uses the DS in its four junior high schools. He thought the device had qualities that might make it an appealing educational tool, such as a built-in microphone and handwriting recognition. What's more, it cost less than $150 -- a relative bargain compared with computers, so it seemed affordable to classrooms.
There was another big advantage: It was teacher-friendly. Despite Japan's reputation as a gadget-loving nation, many schools, including those in Yawata, were surprisingly dependent on paper. Many teachers found computers to be a nuisance because they required preparing extra lessons, and moving children to a computer room. Some were even intimidated by the computers. But the DS could be used briefly and in the classroom. And it cut down on paperwork.
"It's not like we're letting the students play games without supervision," Mr. Hayashi says. "I don't even consider them to be a game device. It's a tool."
To avoid potential controversy, Mr. Hayashi introduced the device cautiously. He secretly approached IE Institute Co., a Tokyo educational-software concern, about making an English-vocabulary program. A year and a half later, Mr. Hayashi showed the finished product to his colleagues and proposed a test. Educators, including the principal of Otokoyama Higashi Junior High where the trial was held last fall, were impressed with the DS's ability to pronounce words and quickly recognize letters that were written on the screen.
Japan's Ministry of Education is taking a reserved view of Yawata's efforts. It says it is up to each district to decide which teaching tools to use, but hastens to add that the government isn't endorsing them. Still, the results of the five-month test have been impressive. The school found that nearly 80% of students who used the DS each day mastered junior-high-level competence in English vocabulary, compared with just 18% before. About half of those students had developed 11th-grade-level abilities. The school district is now testing other software for subjects like arithmetic and Japanese.
the Wii is an epidemic.
