100 Classic Book Collection, known in North America as 100 Classic Books, is an e-book collection developed by Genius Sonority and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS. First released in Europe in December 2008, it was later released in Australia in January 2009, and in North America in June 2010. The game includes one hundred public domain works of literature.
Genius Sonority had previously released a similar collection of books in Japan, under the title DS Bungaku Zenshuu, in October 2007.[4][5] A smaller version of the collection consisting of 20 books, under the title Chotto DS Bungaku Zenshu: Sekai no Bungaku 20, was released in Japan as a downloadable DSiWare application in February 2009.[6][7] French and German versions, under the titles of 100 Livres Classiques and Bibliothek der klassischen Bücher respectively were released in March 2010.[8][9]
The player is required to hold the DS like a book and can 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 several different ways, including genre, author, and length. Players can access introductions for the books and read about the authors.[10] An in-game quiz feature 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]
Reception
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.[2][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]
