Brain Age Sales Swell

No matter that many pooh-poohed the Nintendo DS when it was first announced. By now, freshly outfitted with a slick Lite look, the dual-screened portable is a sensation. Previous hits like Nintendogs helped the system find homes, but these days the craze is training brains.

Nintendo today announced that Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day -- the first in a series of casual brain-teaser titles -- has sold more than four million copies worldwide. The game has challenged 600,000 players in North America, 500,000 in Europe, and a whopping three million in Japan.

"Brain Age is so easy to pick up and play, regardless of your experience level," said Nintendo of America's George Harrison, whose "Brain Age," Nintendo points out, is now an impressive 20. "You can play it for 10 minutes or an hour and keep yourself feeling sharp. As a baby boomer, it's like a treadmill for my mind."

A second cranium-crunching title, Big Brain Academy, arrived in the U.S. in June.

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