Nintendo Donating 80 DSes, Games For Math Education

Nintendo of America will donate 80 Nintendo DS systems and copies of of its Personal Trainer: Math software to nonprofit math education organization Mathcounts. As an incentive to increase membership to its club programs, Mathcounts will give away 20 handhelds and Personal Trainer: Math copies to four randomly-selected middle schools with at least 12 participating students in their Mathcounts clubs. Mathcounts has a presence in over 48,000 middle schools in every U.S. state and territory, where it provides coaching and competition programs seeking to to promote mathematics. Developed by Jupiter (The World Ends With You, Spectrobes series) and released stateside in January 2008, Personal Trainer: Math follows up Personal Trainer: Cooking as the second entry in a series of Nintendo-published games designed to help users "enrich their lives and learn new skills in fun and interesting ways." The title offers over 40 math exercises, from basic addition and subtraction to more extensive multiplication tables and calculation ladders. The software also allows up to 16 players with Nintendo DSes to play against each while finishing math problems, even if only one player has a game card. "Anything that gets kids more interested in math helps prepare them for whatever careers they eventually choose," says Nintendo of America's EVP of Sales and Marketing Cammie Dunaway. "Personal Trainer: Math is great in a competitive club environment."