Brain Training Kinect: Do Math With Your Arms

Brain Age (or Brain Training, in some regions) is one inexplicable mega hit. Despite the fact that it’s not really a game at all, Nintendo’s funny little application is one of the main driving forces behind the DS’s success in both Japan and the US. The fact that most gamers are indifferent to it doesn’t seem mean a thing, since apparently huge numbers of everyday consumers can’t resist the urge to “train their brains in minutes a day!”

Now Brain Training is coming to Microsoft’s Kinect, in Japan, at least. Is there nothing that Nintendo did over five years ago that Microsoft won’t try now?

The “new” game is called Lead: New Brain Training Where You Answer With Your Body. It’s a good thing they included the entire back-of-the-box description in the title, since otherwise, people might have just assumed this is yet another Brain Training sequel.

The trailer below shows a few mini games, including one in which 24 hour time must be translated to the hands of an analog clock face, one in which cars must be directed to the correct lanes, and one in which numbered balloons must be popped in order. The video also shows a Pac-Man game and some weird charts with what most likely amounts to mumbo-jumbo about how smart the game will make players.
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Naturally, every game allows participants to interact with on-screen items using only their hands, though why anyone would want to do any of this is beyond me.

Are people still interested in these games? Has Microsoft given up entirely on trying to impress actual gamers? Slapping a funny control scheme on a five year old casual formula isn’t something that sounds exciting to most consumers, gamers or not, and this alone can’t possibly warrant the purchase of the entire peripheral.

Then again, many people would have said the same thing about Brain Age and the DS, and look what happened there.

Besides, people love the immediate payoff that comes with directly affecting the game they’re playing in a tangible way. If casual consumers love flapping their arms and watching their Avatar flail around as much as they love flapping their gums and hearing their nasally voices coming out of their TV speakers in games like SingStar, this may be quite the hit.

Maybe Microsoft has finally found their in with the Japanese market. It’s unclear whether we’ll ever have the pleasure of doing math with our arms in the US or Europe.