Japanese Schoolgirl Watch: Nintendo DS as Life Coach (Wired)
Comments(149) Female Power Emergency Up! DS promises to “Change your destiny in three months!” by measuring skills in love, fashion, beauty, diet, and fortune-telling(?!), then challenging girls to increase their scores. –Brian Ashcroft
[Nintendo’s DS Lite offers numerous video games, but as a whole, Nintendo seems to be successfully expanding a gaming audience and I suspect offering educational titles is a culprit. However, I never imagined using Nintendo DS titles for life coaching purposes for women or men. Japan is offering other titles dealing with improving social etiquette (My Happy Manner Book), simulating psychiatrist sessions (Mainichi Kokorobics DS Therapy), and demonstrating Yoga workouts (Yoga Anywhere). BK]
category: Gaming, Pedagogy, Popular Culture, Rhetoric and Poetics, Technology
Therapy on the DS? I can’t see how that would work. There are just some functions that electronics, no matter how “intelligent” they become, cannot replicate human interaction.
…what’s next? Simulated dating?
–EJF
Actually, I notice ads in gaming magazines for software titles that attempt simulating dating, but I doubt those are too successful. The concept of simulation continues being successful for Nintendo as shown in its Nintendogs lineup simulating the experience of owning a dog from a specific breed.