Dr. Kawashima, the star of Nintendo's best selling DS series and all-round cash cow Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training, has revealed that he hasn't pocketed a single penny for the game's success.
Instead, the 48-year-old professor told AFP, he used the £11 million in royalties to fund research and build a 300-million-yen laboratory at the university's Institute of Development - with a second due in March.
"Not a single yen has gone in my pocket," said Kawashima, who looks less polygon-y in real life. "Everyone in my family is mad at me but I tell them that if they want money, go out and earn it.
"To hear this may put you off -- but my hobby is work," he added, building on the maths-obsessed mental image of him we have in our heads. If he took the money and moved to a tropical island, he said, he wouldn't know what do with himself. "If I had such time to spare, I want to do my research."
Ironically, despite developing the software for Nintendo, Kawashima says he's banned his four sons from playing games on weekdays, with only one hour allowed at the weekends. He once even snapped a game disc in half, to prove his massive strength and iron discipline.
"What is scary about games is that you can kill as many hours as you want. I don't think playing games is bad in itself but it makes children unable to do what they should do such as study and communication with the family," he said.
"Having fun is not studying. Making them study is not to entertain children but to pressure them to make efforts. People fall to lower and lower places unless they are driven to go higher." He sounds like the best dad in the world.
Kawashima says he no longer uses the DS game to keep his brain nimble, but is confident that his research will do a better job than touch screen timestable.
"Researchers, especially those in medical fields, are said to die of what they are studying. Since I've been studying the brain, I'll die of a brain disease," he said with a grin.
That'd be bad news for Nintendo's PR department...
That's an amazing thing to do. What a briliant guy...
Ngamer are scum for that headline though. That's proper tabloid journalism.
"Dr. Kawashima 'didn't get a penny' for Brain Training" Clearly, he *did* get a penny, he then just gave it away again. I've spent most of the money my work have given me, that doesn't mean they "Haven't given me a penny".
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
