You may have read my previous postings about the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader Digital Book devices earlier this year, both of them pretty exciting technologies that enable users to carry around a couple hundred books or newspapers at a time, and purchase and download from a selection of thousands online. There are rumors that each company has their sights set on the education market, and will soon begin to make textbooks available.
They're not the only ones. Nintendo has announced a partnership with HarperCollins this week in the UK, to provide the "100 Classic Book Collection" on the Nintendo DS, the portable game system that has sold two million units in Britain. Available on December 26, the title includes 100 classics from Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare, Bronte, Twain and more. Check it out on Amazon UK.
It's a great marketing ploy on two fronts: first, most of those two million users are students who will probably have to read the classics in school and would probably enjoy them on their Nintendo more, and secondly, it targets a new market of adults who would love the convenience of huge classic books in a tiny package, at less than half the price of a Kindle or Reader.
If it's a success, Nintendo says they will roll it out stateside. (Over 20 million DS's have been sold in North America alone). Watch for it: "Okay class, everyone take out your Nintendos and turn to Macbeth, Act III, scene II."
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