Nintendo Tries Limited U.S. Release For Electroplankton

The abstract Toshio Iwai-designed Nintendo DS music manipulation gamee Electroplankton has been one of the games most demonstrated by Nintendo representatives as an example of the company's creative thinking, most notably at Game Developers Conference 2005, when it was shown alongside Nintendogs. However, the title has, in sharp contrast to Nintendogs' and DS Brain Training's performance, not performed well at retail in Japan, despite a relatively positive critical reception, with recent figures indicating less than 10,000 total Japanese sales for the first-party DS title. Thus, Nintendo has announced that the title "will make a public debut befitting its creative, quirky nature" in North America, revealing that Electroplankton will debut on January 9, 2006, and is being sold exclusively online (at major online retailers and Nintendo.com) and at the Nintendo World Store in New York. It is unclear whether Nintendo intends to release further titles in such a limited form, as is common in Japan with services such as Sega's D-Direct store, or wheter Electroplankton is a special case. "Electroplankton represents just one of the many ways that Nintendo is developing new kinds of software to reach new audiences," said George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Even if you have never played a video game, you can pick it up and start making amazing musical combinations with no instruction."