One in Five Kids Think Fame is More Likely Than Math Proficiency

Personal Trainer: Math for Nintendo DS Turns Learning Into a Game

REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– A new survey, conducted by Wakefield Research for Nintendo, confirms that math anxiety is alive and well among U.S. kids. In fact, of 400 children surveyed, one in five believe that they are more likely to grow up to become a professional athlete, actor or singer than they are to get A’s and B’s in math next year. Other results of the survey conducted Dec. 12-23, 2008, include:

More than one-third of kids surveyed say that math is their most difficult subject.
Nearly one-third of kids have very negative feelings about math: 18 percent called it “boring,” while 13 percent actually called it “torture.”
86 percent of parents surveyed say that math is important to their careers, even though more than half of them admitted they thought they’d never need the math they learned in school.
These results demonstrate that math remains perceived as a difficult but important skill. Building on its legacy of training brains and getting people moving with fitness games, Nintendo introduces Personal Trainer™: Math, new software for Nintendo DS™ that provides a fun and rewarding way for people to improve their basic math abilities.

“Personal Trainer: Math provides a fun antidote for math anxiety,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “People can keep their math skills sharp while tracking their progress every day to see how they improve.”

Personal Trainer: Math includes 40 fast-paced exercises, from basic addition and multiplication to more extensive multiplication tables and calculation ladders. Daily math drills keep skills sharp, while attendance records provide ways for users to see how they improve week to week and month to month. The Nintendo DS touch screen interface allows users to input their answers quickly and easily. Using wireless DS Download Play, up to 16 players can compete to finish their problems with the fastest time, even if only one player has a game card.

Personal Trainer: Math marks the second in Nintendo’s Personal Trainer series of titles that are designed to help people enrich their lives in fun and creative ways. Personal Trainer: Cooking already has turned thousands of Nintendo DS owners into budding chefs.

For more information about Personal Trainer: Math, visit www.PersonalTrainerMath.com.

Methodology: The Nintendo Personal Trainer: Math survey was conducted by Wakefield Research via telephone interviewing. For this study, interviews were fielded among 400 American parents of kids ages 9 to 14, and then 400 kids between the ages of 9 and 14. Interviews were conducted Dec. 12-23, 2008.

About Nintendo: The worldwide pioneer in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Wii™ and Nintendo DS™ systems. Since 1983, when it launched the Nintendo Entertainment System™, Nintendo has sold nearly 2.8 billion video games and more than 480 million hardware units globally, including the current-generation Wii and Nintendo DS, as well as the Game Boy™, Game Boy Advance, Super NES™, Nintendo 64™ and Nintendo GameCube™. It has also created industry icons that have become well-known, household names such as 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.