Nintendo has started officially branding their new casual game line up for the Nintendo DS; the games in this series will be marked with the Touch Generations logo for easy identification. The initial set of titles includes:

• Brain Age
• Nintendogs
• Tetris DS
• True Swing Golf
• Big Brain Academy
• Magnetica
• Sudoku Gridmaster

Big Brain and Magnetica are due on June 5, shortly before the DS Lite arrives the US, and Sudoku will follow soon after. Clearly, Nintendo is timing the casual game brand to coincide with the launch of the DS Lite, but with so many vendors only offering bundles, one has to wonder if this will discourage casual game adoption, at least in the short term.

Full release after the jump.

NINTENDO LAUNCHES NEW ‘TOUCH GENERATIONS’ BRAND FOR NONTRADITIONAL DS GAMES

Casual Games Appeal to a Wider Audience

REDMOND, Wash., May 30, 2006 – Starting in June, Nintendo will begin branding its more casual Nintendo DS™ titles under the new Touch Generations label. The Touch Generations brand will include titles that anyone can pick up and play, even with little or no experience with video games. It represents one of the many ways that Nintendo is making it easy for new demographics of people to be introduced to video games. Three new games, including a second brain-training game, will be added to the Touch Generations category in June.

“We remain committed to turning video games into an inclusive mass medium that everyone can enjoy,” says George Harrison, Nintendo of America’s senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. “Touch Generations will help novices and newcomers identify the fun and uniquely engaging experiences that are available only on Nintendo DS.”

These current and upcoming games will be identified by a distinctive logo, and will help non-gamers and casual gamers quickly identify which games might be appropriate for them. Touch Generations will be one element of Nintendo’s multimillion-dollar campaign to get more and more people interested in video games.

The first seven titles in the Touch Generations brand include the following upcoming games:

  * Big Brain Academy™ (launches June 5): The second title in the brain-training series tests players in five areas: thinking, memorization, computation, analysis and identification.

  * Magnetica™ (launches June 5): A simple puzzle game challenges players to connect and eliminate like-colored marbles before they reach the goal.

  * Sudoku Gridmaster (launches June 26): This version of the wildly popular puzzle grid features more than 400 sudoku puzzles, all of which were hand-picked by the original creators of sudoku.

Touch Generations also will include the following already-released titles:

  * Brain Age™: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day (launched April 17): More than 5 million people around the world test their brains daily in areas like math, counting, reading and memorization. Many purchasers include older people who had never previously played a video game.

  * Nintendogs™ (launched Aug. 22, 2005): The hugely popular puppy simulation and communication program lets users pet their pups using the touch screen and teach them commands using the microphone.

  * Tetris® DS (launched March 20): Nintendo’s greatest characters team up with one of the most popular puzzle games of all time.

  * True Swing Golf (launched Jan. 23): In this realistic golf game, players simply slide the stylus across the touch screen to strike the ball and send it flying.

Touch Generations titles can be enjoyed by hard-core gamers and beginners alike, as evidenced by the positive reviews the gaming media have given to many of these titles. But as Nintendo adds new titles to the Touch Generations category, the two groups will be able to come together and identify their common ground.

The worldwide innovator in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Nintendo DS™, Game Boy® Advance and Nintendo GameCube™ systems, and upcoming Wii™ console. Since 1983, Nintendo has sold more than 2 billion video games and more than 360 million hardware units globally, and has created industry icons like Mario™, Donkey Kong®, Metroid®, Zelda™ and Pokémon®. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo’s operations in the Western Hemisphere. For more information about Nintendo, visit the company’s Web site at www.nintendo.com.