By Stevie Smith Feb 6, 2008, 12:52 GMT
The BBC’s ticking pooch consumer rights show Watchdog has this week flashed its proactive canines in the direction of the Nintendo DS handheld, and specifically the clamshell console’s massively popular educational non-game Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training.
Accent discrimination in Brain Training? Aussie actress Nicole Kidman seems to be getting along okay. Credit: Nintendo.
Dedicating several minutes to what most gamers will likely see as an absolute none issue, Watchdog criticised Brain Training for its apparent inability to differentiate between the varied regional accents of its users.
Specifically, Michelle Livesey, a radio DJ from Manchester, reported that she was having problems being understood while training her brain with the software, putting particular emphasis on an exercise requiring a verbal response to the different colours flashing up on screen.
“I’m saying, blue, blue, blue and it’s saying no, even though it was blue,” complained Livesey. “Then it got to yellow. I’m going, ‘yeller’ and everyone’s saying to me you need to be a bit posher. You need to say, ‘yellow’ and as soon as I did, it picked it up.”
Livesey goes on to say that she was not alone in finding Brain Training somewhat troublesome when it came to verbal exercises, noting that many of her colleagues armed with a DS and a copy of the software were experiencing similar hiccups.
By way of response, Nintendo said it has been continually monitoring the efficiency of its voice recognition software since Brain Training launched in June of 2006, and has received only a small number of complaints from UK users with regional accents who are unable to interact smoothly with the overall experience.
While conceding that it understands and apologises the frustration experienced by users with regional accents, Nintendo offers a selection of guidelines (also to found in the software’s instruction manual) that should be followed when using Brain Training’s voice recognition function.
Naturally, these guidelines include simple and logical instructions such as keeping to a distance of around 20-30cm from the DS when speaking towards its microphone, making sure not to shout or blow, to use in a quietened environment for vocal clarity, and to:
“Pronounce each word as clearly as possible, and try to avoid using strong dialects or accents.”
This writer happens to be a Manchester man, and certainly does not speak like an upper class toff from one moment to the next. However, when submerged in Brain Training and asked to say the words ‘Yellow’ or ‘Blue’ upon seeing those colours flash onto the screen, I will not say ‘Yeller’ or ’Blur’ -- even though I’m more than likely to use similar pronunciation in a conversational sense.
The vast majority of us have a regional accent of some degree, and if disgruntled Northern disc jockeys are unable to pronounce a few simple words properly for the sake of advancement through a Brain Training exercise, then perhaps they should spend more time with Dr. Kawashima than prattling behind a radio microphone.
This story also showcases Watchdog’s increasing reliance on focusing on audience-pulling stories that tap into popular culture but carry little to no worth from a consumer perspective.
Exposing gas companies ripping off old grannies during the winter months is to be commended, labelling the Nintendo DS as implementing regional discrimination for being unable to filter out the accent-induced phlegm of the ignorant is not.
‘Enjoy’ the BBC clip by clicking HERE.
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