digidenki Japan Digital Lifestyle

(c) Visuals: Ertain Japan K.K. 2006

Have you ever felt you want to use your DS to become more creative and turn it into a a drawing tablet? Then here is the answer: The Japanese company Ertain will launch a special painting program for the Nintendo DS in July. The concept is based on the classic “paint-by-number” idea. The user can “re-paint” famous classic paintings on the screen with the pen using different techniques like crayons, ink, oil, etc.

Sales price will be around 4,000 Yen.

The Nintendo DS is turning more and more into a general education and leisure device. Many dictionaries, language courses, Japanese Kanji trainers already exist for the DS and sell very well.

Actually now amongst the Top 10 best selling games in Japan 6 are Nintendo DS titles. And the interesting this is that most of these titles are not pure game titles but focus on educational content.

Another perfect example of how Nintendo and its partners are changing the rules of a whole industry by re-defining “gaming” and by winning total new target groups.

All visuals copyright© 2005-2006 WILLCOM, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Bandai, the famous Japanese toy maker and Willcom Japan will start selling a Tamagotchi mobile phone for kids from mid July this year on.
What first sounded to me like a toy phone (Bandai is already producing several different toy phones for kids) is in fact a real phone!

Following a child friendly manner they gave this mobile a very simple and easy to remember name “PAPIPO”.

The device features a GPS location function (so parents know about the whereabouts of their kids) and a emergency button the child can press if her or she feels in danger. (a function most of the mobile kid phones in Japan now have)

Of course the new mobile also features games: 2 IQ tester games (a very popular genre in Japan), a fortune teller application and a colour game that uses the mobile phones built in camera.
(But NO Tamagotchi game. Something I don’t understand.)

It also contains a mail application with a vast amount of emoticons and a personal avatar generator that can then be stored online and sent to friends.

The phone comes in 3 different versions. One being a special Tamagotchi edition. The covers can be replaced by using different themed add-on covers.

Target group are kids aged 7 -12 years old and the phone will sell for around 15,000 Yen for new Willcom customers.

Of course Bandai is not the first company to enter the kids mobile phone market but it is the first time for a big toy manufacturer to take this step. It will be interesting to see how this will affect other companies. I am sure this will not the the last time that we see new “unconventional” players enter the mobile market in Japan.

And who knows what will be next? A real Transformers mobile phone? “Mobiles In Disguise!”

Takara released a mobile brain trainer console called the “nousapiens” (brain-sapiens) last month that sells for 26,000 Yen.

The device should serve as a memory trainer and cartridges with new training programs can be bought for 6,200 Yen each. Takara promises that a person can increase his memorizing speed by 4.5 times through the little gadget. The device features a 32BIT CPU RiscOS processor running at 20Mhz and has a 240×160 dot display.

In the last 6 month brain games had been booming in Japan. There are several titles available for game consoles and handheld consoles. (PSP, DS, GBA)

When will a mobile phone come out that features a brain activity measure unit and some brain trainer games? Or even some brain tamer applicatiosn to overcome stress?

Bandai came up with a new reincarnation of the Tamagotchi theme: The Digimon Mini.

Digimon is a famous Animation series by Toei Animations and also well known outside of Japan. In the last years there have been various new ideas for the Digimon merchandise from Bandai.

Digimon Mini lets the user hatch its own digital monster, pebble it, level it up and later find another Digimon Mini owner to start a battle. By connecting two devices the two monsters can fight against each other determining who will win the fight and take the all the glory (and valuable energy points for leveling up).

The small game comes with a strap and can also be attached to a mobile phone. Cost is around 1,300 Yen.

Would even be more exciting to see this game INTERGRATED it into the mobile phone and battle others via IR or Bluetooth or even using GPS creating real battle arenas.

Japan is one of the biggest market (if not the biggest) for collectible figures. Five monthly magazines are devoted entirely to this hobby. Not to mention the dozen of other hobby magazines partly covering the topic.

The natsukashii (retro) boom of the 80s is still big. Celebrating its 2005 Mario anniversary Nintendo released some “new” goodies this month:

6 new versions of the collectors 3D dioramas of famous games. They will start selling from this December for 525 Yen a piece.

I expect them to be sold out pretty soon.

ChoroQ is playing with the well known Japanese lunchbox idea (bento).

In Japan special lunchboxes are sold at train stations and are called Eki Ben (train lunchbox). Maybe some of you already heard of “eki ben”.

Now toy and model car manufacturer ChoroQ launched a very special kind of “eki ben”: a lunchbox that contains 8 toy trains and that is even packed like a real lunchbox.

It will start selling from 10th of January for around 6000 Yen.

The whole concept is a real nice idea but better keep this away from kids or they will eat it.