Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes A Day! - Reception

Reception

Initial reactions from retailers was concern about the new title's ability to sell. The most important retailers in Japan were given the game for 15 minutes to test it out. In the end, Nintendo secured nearly 70,000 orders for the first shipment, an amount above most expectations. In comparison, the sequel had over 850,000 orders placed before its launch.

Brain Age met with positive sales figures. The game debuted selling around 43,000 copies in May 2005, considered a good number for an educational title. Although most titles only stay in the Japanese weekly top ten list of games for a couple of weeks, DS Training for Adults managed to stay, as of January 2006, between the most sold games for 34 weeks (except three weeks). As of June 11, 2006, Brain Training has sold 2,322,970 copies in Japan alone. It was the 94th best-selling game in Japan in 2008, selling 140,992 copies, with total lifetime sales of 3,750,890. During its first three weeks on sale in North America, Brain Age sold 120,000 copies, becoming the fifteenth title in the top U.S. video game charts during the month of May in terms of units sold. In Europe, Brain Training received critical acclaim, becoming number 1 in the Nintendo DS sales chart, and number 4 in the all-platforms chart on debut, and selling more than 500,000 units in just over two months. As of January 22, 2007, Brain Training has sold over 2 million copies in Europe. As of October 30, 2007, Brain Training has sold over one million copies in the United Kingdom. It was the 10th best-selling Nintendo DS game of December 2008 in the United States. As of March 31, 2011, Brain Age has worldwide sales of 18.96 million.

The game was received with generally positive reviews in the Western market, though some criticized the game for poor voice and handwriting recognition at times. The game's design earned it Edge magazine's EIEF06 Edge Award for innovation. In 2007, Brain Age received the Interactive Achievement Awards for handheld game of the year. The game has also been featured in numerous media apparitions including newspapers and television in different countries, including the United States (Time magazine and Discovery Channel) and Australia (featured in Seven News). Wired included the game in its list of "The 15 Most Influential Games of the Decade" at No. 5, due to how it "bucked the dominant trends" and "ushered in the era of games that are (supposedly) good for you, like Wii Fit."