Cooking Mama Franchise Expands

The Cooking Mama games have become something of a worldwide gaming phenomenon over the past few years. Mama's titles are comprised of educational mini-games that give basic lessons. In the Cooking Mama games, you'll learn cooking terms and techniques as well as a variety of recipes. The overwhelming popularity of the franchise has caused Mama to branch out into teaching techniques in other hobbies, with 2 brand new Cooking Mama titles set to release before 2010 ends.

If you've gone anywhere near the Nintendo section of your local electronics store in the past few years, you're likely to have seen a sparkly-eyed cartoon woman staring at you. Don't be alarmed, that's just Mama! The original Cooking Mama for Nintendo DS was released in the fall of 2006 in North America, after having won the 2006 E3 convention's Best of E3 award. The game was an immediate hit, selling half a million copies within that first year.

This success spurred Cooking Mama into a full-blown franchise. Cooking Mama: Cook Off was released on the Nintendo Wii just 6 months after the original Cooking Mama's DS release. A year after the original DS title, a sequel followed: Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends was available for Nintendo DS as of November 2007. A third DS game appeared in late 2009, titled Cooking Mama 3: Shop and Chop. By 2009 the franchise had sold over 4 million copies in North America alone according to Kotaku, a popular gaming website.

But Mama didn't stop there. 2009 also saw the release of Nintendo DS' Gardening Mama, in which you can grow a variety of flowers and vegetables in Mama's garden. This game got mixed reception compared to Cooking Mama's glowing reviews, but is still generally seen as a credit to the franchise. How will Mama's next franchise titles match up?

One of the two new titles in the Cooking Mama franchise is Babysitting Mama. This game will be released over the 2010 holiday season for the Nintendo Wii. At this point, it's unclear whether Babysitting Mama will be a hit or miss. The game has already been subject to scrutiny, due in part to its unconventional controller. Instead of being played with the standard Wiimote, the Babysitting Mama "controller" is your Wiimote encased in a plush baby. Only one version of the controller is currently planned for release, which is a Caucasian baby.

As Babysitting Mama is almost directly targeted at young girls, it's unclear whether Nintendo and Majesco will catch additional flak over the title as the holiday season release looms. Cooking Mama was once the target of a PETA campaign against animal products in recipe ingredients, will Babysitting Mama be accused of making young girls "baby crazy" or promoting teen pregnancy?

The other upcoming Cooking Mama title is called Crafting Mama. This game seems less likely to cause concern - it's hard to find quilt-making offensive, after all. In this game, Mama's back on the DS, crafting up over 40 projects. The craft projects include kaleidoscopes, dolls and an apron for Mama to wear. Crafting Mama also features a tiered minigame, according to GameSpot's E3 2010 coverage of the game. Crafting Mama's tiered minigame sees you shape, fire, glue, paint and serve drinks out of a mug you've carefully crafted to Mama's specifications. Crafting Mama is slated for a late 2010 release, but the exact date has yet to be announced.

Sources:

"Cooking Mama Surpasses 500,000." IGN.

Mike Fahey. "Cooking Mama Sells Four Million...Domestically." Kotaku.

JC Fletcher. "Here it is: the Babysitting Mama Controller." Joystiq.

Kurtis Seid. "E3 2010: Crafting Mama Impressions - Preview." GameSpot.