EA’s Booze-Training Games For Nintendo DS

A true champagne moment for Electronic Arts today, as SPOnG finds out that a raft of DS ‘booze-training’ titles is seemingly planned for the DS later this year in Japan.

That’s right. The geniuses of Electronic Arts have taken SPOnG’s two favourite pastimes – bizarre Nintendo DS training software and heavy drinking – and combined them.

Bartender DS is all about mixing drinks; Sakashou DS is all about sake, and Sommelier DS is all about choosing and tasting fine wines.

The software helps you to choose beverages and properly store your wines (that’s right kids, wine can actually be stored as opposed to guzzled immediately!).

Sim City DS producer Hiroshi Murakami said that it was his hope that people would spend the 2,950 yen on Sommelier DS and then buy good wine instead of going directly to the cheap stuff.

We await The Daily Mail to get entirely the wrong end of the stick and run a story along the lines of, "Ban this alcoholic filth being sold to our kids!"

We contacted EA immediately upon hearing this news for confirmation that it wasn’t actually a very late April Fool’s gag and to find out if its impressive raft of booze-training games for DS would be heading to our gloriously alcohol-sodden nation any time soon.

A fourth idea for a booze-training title might be something along the lines of 8-Ace DS - a handy interactive guide to cheap, strong, continental lager along the lines of one of our favourite review sites Trampjuice. Have that one for free, EA!

We currently await confirmation on whether or not this is all some kind of drunken mix-up. Hic... urp... another case of Penfolds' Grange '51 for all! (Thanks to Aleks on The Guardian for the heads up).