100 Classic Book Collection

100 Classic Book Collection features one hundred books stored into the DS cartridge. Several of the works included are Othello by William Shakespeare, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, and The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. Additional free books were available to download via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection until the discontinuation of the service on May 20, 2014.[10][11]

The player is required to hold the DS like a book and is able to adjust the text size and change background music to listen to while reading.[10] A bookmark feature allows the player to mark their place in the book, as well as resume from that point on restart of the game. The game offers a search feature for books in a number of different ways, including genre, author, and length. Players can access introductions for the books and read about the authors.[10] An in-game quiz features asks players personality-related questions and recommends certain novels depending on the answers given. Players can send "trial versions" of the game to other DS users via the local Wi-Fi.[10]

100 Classic Book Collection debuted on UK sales charts at number 17 during its week of release, and moved up to number 8 the following week.[1][12]

The content was well received, but critics felt the DS was not a suitable platform. Prior to the advent of Kindle, The Guardian newspaper reviewed the game as part of the "minority fad" of e-readers, declaring it bland and impersonal but good value for money.[13] Eurogamer magazine criticised Nintendo for only using texts that were out of copyright and for not spending the extra for modern classics. They also found the text difficult to read due to the size of the screen, with unhelpful hyphenations, a low word number per page and distracting animations.[14] The Telegraph newspaper agreed that the game offered good value for money but also criticised the size of the screen.[15]

• Official website