Nintendo Brain Game brands Northerners thick

A Lancashire woman has reported being frustrated after finding that Nintendo's Brain Game, which is supposed to help improve memory retention, could not understand her accent.

Michelle Livesey got the game for Christmas but found that it could not understand the words she was saying. She has since found others in the north east of England who have had similar problems.

"My boyfriend bought it for me because I wanted to do the brain training programmes and keep my brain in shape," she told the Lancashire Evening Post.

"It would say I was getting things wrong, words like 'yellow' and 'blue', and that I had the brain of an 80 year-old. It was quite comical, me shouting words on Christmas Day and everyone laughing at me."

The problems were featured on a recent episode of the BBC's Watchdog. Nintendo told the programme that, while it makes every effort to ensure that the device can handle regional accents, a few problems remain.