Parents might need to rethink telling their children to spend less time on their handheld video game consoles: Nintendo has just announced their new partnership with book publisher HarperCollins to develop a package that transforms the DS into a portable e-reader and offers a collection of 100 classic books. Available titles with the Dec. 26 UK release include works by Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Mark Twain – not necessarily the lightest reading to connect with the youth audience.
We’re inspired by anything that encourages people to read, but we’ll be curious to see if the DS can translate this extra level of functionality into success. The biggest question being, will the relatively small screen size (62mm x 46mm) make reading text too much of a chore? (Meanwhile, we’re also reminded of the classic image of a kid cleverly disguising a magazine within the confines of a book as they pretend to study…)
The system does show promise by including a number of handy features, such as enabling users to search for books that match their mood and time constraints, as well as a bookmarking feature that allows readers to save their place. Beyond the 100 books already available, customers will have the opportunity to download ten additional titles and share lists of favorites using the DS’s wifi capabilities.
[via Zmogo]
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Connect with a youth audience? I couldn’t find any hard US numbers in a brief google search but take a look at the Nintendo DS demographics in Japan: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n10/conference2008fall/presen/e/index.html
Third last paragraph on that page, check out the graph. They’re targeting the vastly larger 18-70 year old market. You know, the same types of people who made Brain Age and Wii Fit and all that stuff such a huge success.
December 15th, 2008 at 2:03 pm