Nintendo game courts wine lovers By HIROKO TABUCHI ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER TOKYO -- Japanese wine lovers will get more than their usual fill of Beaujolais Nouveau in November, when a new game offering advice on wine tasting and manners debuts along with this year's Beaujolais. "Beginners Wine DS" for Nintendo Co.'s DS handheld device features step-by-step instructions on choosing a bottle for a romantic dinner or correctly swirling a glass when wine tasting. The game, developed by Tokyo's Square Enix Co., also comes with a database of 120 selected bottles, a glossary, a quiz and a guide to bluffing knowledge about wine, according to a statement released Wednesday. "This game makes wine more accessible to everyone," the release said. "Beginners Wine DS" hits stores on Nov. 15 to coincide with this year's release of the Beaujolais Nouveau, a globally popular seasonal wine. It was not immediately known whether the game would go on sale outside Japan. Other Nintendo DS games popular with adults let players train their brains with simple quizzes, navigate cooking recipes and analyze people's voices to tell whether they're lying. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/170..._Wine_Game.html
Theres been a few of these programs before, in fact theres loads of guides like these makes you wonder if Japan actually has the internet or books
I hope someday you will realize that the DS is much more than a game console, it's also a platform for (more or less) useful applications. There have been a few examples in the past: an official MP3 player, the DS browser, the DS TV tuner thingy, etc...
Admittedly, teaching your average American winetasting and manners is like teaching a monkey not to stink. This will never be released stateside.
When you put it that way...I agree. I just wish Nintendo would make more useful applications for it - instead of an application about different types of wine (the DS is mostly played by kids...get me? Though they are trying to attract adults to video games). What about things like: Learn Spanish, Japanese, and other languages and dictionaries...more useful stuff, ya know.
Hadn't heard Ubi was releasing foreign language learning games. Those may be useful and I may need to brush up on my Spanish! But they really need to a Japanese learning game...I'm sure a lot of importing dealing with video games are with Japanese games...
Well i just play with ds and use psp to something cooler (like no need to buy mp3player or browser) I remember when nintendo launched gamecube without cd-playing. They just said something like "we make gaming consoles not some random shit" And now they're making these face training and mp3 players for ds and adding browsers and news channel stuff to consoles etc. I can't imagine that someone really needs wine ds thing but maybe they'll get some money from random japanese people. ps. I just got my ds few days ago and i have to say that these games are pretty good, even if most of them are made for childrens. Simple and addictive mostly. (or maybe i'm just too childish)
Most of EA's releases over there are these kind of titles. Think they did a White/Red wine title. Theres a bartender one next week from them as well, but you don't play as a bartender its just like a book that tells you how to mix certain drinks.
Weird, one would expect a Spanish flag in a "learn Spanish" game. You know, Spain is to Spanish what England is to English, the "standard". Not that I'm complaining, though. Americans may be more used to relate Spanish to Mexico than to Spain, due to distance issues.
The analogy of British English to Spaniard Spanish is not apt. It is more correct to say that other English speaking countries mock England's conventions, while other Spanish speaking countries mock Spanish Spanish.
I don't know what planet you are from (probably planet U.S.A?). I don't know any English speaking country apart from the two in Northern America who think that it's cool to be an idiot about how they speak - modifying the language however they see fit. It is a perfect analogy. No-one on the American continent can be trusted with language; they fuck English in the north and spit on Spanish in the centre and south. Absolute disgrace to the world. It isn't called "British" English, by the way, it's fuckin' called English (and then there's American "English" - which will sooner or later be spelt with a "Zeeeeeeeee", I imagine). I look forward to that French game. Seraph: "Foreign" language games? Sort of implied. "I'm going to get Native English Training!" I am also mightily offended by the Mexican flag on the cover as well. It's just like when you go to a website and the language selection has a U.S. flag for English - it makes you want to vomit on your screen.
