I wish they would make more games that are educational in the future. Anyone else remember the awesomeness of the Apple IIGS and early mac days? Where in the world is Carmen San Diego for instance, or Think Quick (Apple IIGS puzzle game) or Robot oddyssey (you have tasks like navigating a maze and you have to program your robot to accomplish those tasks, amazingly cool) also for IIGS. There were SO many back then and I spent hour upon hour when I was 2-6 playing those. I learned to read at 3 or so almost exclusively from playing computer games on the IIGS. There just isn't really anywhere to get those kinds of games anymore in large quantity, as someone who will probably have kids in the semi near future I hope that changes.

Nintendo: Educational games print money.
Sony: Educational games are kiddy.
Microsoft: Educational games? LOL wut?

Summary

Nintendo: We're already doing it
MS: We're about to do it
Sony: Learning is for kidz only!

Lets see which of these opinions pay off for the company, and which fails miserably, leaving Sony in an even worse situation than currently :P

@Impulsivity
I actual don't remember any educational games being all that great or fun. Cept for maybe Oregon Trail, but all you learned during that game was that travelling by buggy sucked balls, people seem to die without any good reason, and you never need food as long as you have bullets.

Nintendo games are barely educational. I can't think of anything anyone could learn from Brain age for instance. It does indeed use thought, but it doesn't teach any skills/knowledge. There is a difference between trying to pop balloons in numerological order quickly and learning about the History of Germany from Carmen San Diego.

If just basic mini games are enough there is Hot Brain on the PSP and others for PS systems as well. I'm not saying those games are useless, just that they aren't quite educational.

I can't think offhand of any MS games that are even remotely educational in nature however, though I do know several for both Nintendo and Sony. Maybe you could say that practicing marksmanship vs aliens counts?

   Haha, the later Oregon Trail games were a lot better then the first one on the IIGS.  I will admit that one was beyond basic.  There was really only so much you could do with the medium.

    There were a lot of great educational game gems from back then, but you had to look for them.  Even the original Kings Quest games were great.  You had to think of the fairy tales the situations corresponded to in order to find out the solution to get out of the problem with characters like the Hansel and Grettel Witch.  There were a ton of games that required a lot of thought back then, far more then now.

Impulsivity, please get some variety of degree or other qualification about this before you open your mouth, or at least check wikipedia :P

"I can't think of anything anyone could learn from Brain age for instance. It does indeed use thought, but it doesn't teach any skills/knowledge. There is a difference between trying to pop balloons in numerological order quickly and learning about the History of Germany from Carmen San Diego."

Correct, there is a difference.

Memorising facts is recognised as the lowest form of learning or brain development. Just because you can't express to a friend what you have learnt, it does not mean that it isn't increasing your mental capacity. Brain Age or Professor Layton and the Curious Village (3rd party DS) is what I would want in an educational game.

Unless I wanted to learn something specific, like a language. Oh, but Nintendo make games like that too :P

There are lots of educational programs on the DS like "French Coach", "Lets do Yoga" and "Can't decide what to cook : Cooking Guide" but these are not games.
As a platform for Educational Software the DS is very good. Learning and games rarely work that well together.

One good example is on the PC, I really understand how portals works now. "Speedy thing goes in - Speedy thing comes out"

The only educational game I want to play is the next gen version of Oregon trail... man, that would be freaking awesome.

   Those "speed test" games are subject to drastically diminishing returns.  On games like Hot Brain or Brain age or whatever else I can very quickly get the top score on almost all of the "tests" and then...what?  I mean really, how is anyone "learning" anything by popping balloons with numbers quickly?  That is more or less a reaction test after a certain point.

   Most people and even most children do not have a whole lot of malleability when it comes to innate intelligence which is more or less what IQ tests and even a lot of the speed tests in those games are addressing.  Sure there is a range of performance and it can be increased slightly, but doing repetitive mini games with numbers certainly isn't going to do that.  This idea that you can somehow "increase your mental capacity" is only true if you're talking about 10% or so over a lifetime.  

   Facts and concepts on the other hand are learnable by everyone even though obviously the very smart will learn them faster.  Finding out Lima is in Peru is a concrete gain AND most complex games like say...Carmen San Diego also require the use of deductive logic which is certainly higher on the mental development hierarchy then quickly ordering number sets.  If you think a mini game that asks you to remember 4 sounds and repeat them is more intellectually useful then a game that asks you to solve complex problems, learn new facts, and synthesize solutions you are only kidding yourself in order to benefit your opinion of Nintendo.

   Feel free to disprove me by finding an example of someone who taught themselves enough to go from a 1000 type score on the SAT to a 1400+ (the 98th percentile gifted or better range) or who became drastically smarter (read, more then a nominal value like 10%) through simplistic mental exercises...or any other method for that matter.  The Malleability of intelligence has stark limitations that are set in place in early childhood.  There is very recent data that actually suggests intellect has something to do with the nature of differential brain development between the brilliant and the average.  This difference relates primarily to the thickness of the cortex (it is thinner in smart kids before 9 so they have more room to make connections) and these differences persist throughout life barring injury or eventual disease.  

  Basically the idea that Big Brain Academy will in any way make you smarter is a myth.  At best it will make you slightly better at the reflex portion of the games, but in terms of any general increase in intelligence you'd be better off playing sudoku, reading or doing any number of other things.