14 DAY TRIAL // During the annual award ceremony hosted by the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival, Edge Magazine acknowledged Bain Training's success in the UK. Edge Magazine is the leader of market opinion when it comes to the English games industry. Editor Margaret Robertson revealed it to be the judges' "most overwhelming decision to date", placing the Best Game award in Nintendo's camp. "Who would have thought a game would make people want to do maths?" she said. Accepting the award was Nintendo UK's David Yarnton, who soon remarked it was the third time in four years the company had won.
This shouldn't come as a surprise since Brain Training already is a huge success in Japan. It was only a matter of time until its echoes would find its way into Europe, with over 4 million sales worldwide. The game made a spectacular breakthrough by introducing console playing to the elderly, virtually opening a new market for Nintendo.
This year saw the first Edge Mobile Award, presented to Infospace/MTV's Dirty Sanchez party game. The game won the votes of the magazine's public online poll, surfacing ahead titles like Fountainhead/id's Doom RPG, Digital Chocolate's Tower Bloxx and Gameloft's Lumines Mobile. Edge Magazine's competition always supported the developers' disposition to create unique and ambitious projects, even at the expense of popularity. However, the awards lie in the shadow of great absentees, with EA, Activision, Sony, THQ and Ubisoft not being present. Nintendo's Brain Training (aka Brain Age) for DS won over console nominees like: Fahrenheit, Killer 7, Ossu! Tatakae! Ouendan, Dragon Quest VIII, Electroplankton, Amped 3, Guitar Hero.