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Cooking Mama franchise serves 4 million in US

By Tom Magrino, GameSpotPosted May 12, 2009 2:08 pm PT

Majesco's bread-and-butter franchise broaches quadruple-platinum mark after the release of Gardening Mama.

Majesco saw a significant turnaround period in 2008, before which it had succumbed to near irrelevance after its financial implosion in 2006. However, thanks to its shift away from top-tier, big-budget game development to mass-market-friendly casual games for Nintendo's best-selling Wii and DS, the publisher turned a $2.1 million profit last year on growing revenues of $63.9 million.

Majesco's sugar mama.

One of the key games in that turnaround has been Majesco's Cooking Mama franchise. This week, the publisher said that the franchise, which has seen five installments across Nintendo's Wii and DS, has now sold in excess of 4 million units domestically. Majesco did not offer global sales figures, and had not responded to requests for additional comment as of press time.

The latest addition to the Cooking Mama franchise, Gardening Mama for the DS, debuted to fairly positive reviews at the end of March. Offering a variation on the established cooking mechanic, Gardening Mama sees players tending and harvesting a variety of plants by participating in a range of minigames.

For more on the game, check out GameSpot's full review of Gardening Mama.

17 Comments

  • kavadias1981

    Posted May 13, 2009 2:55 am PT

    My 4 year old daughter loves it. That about sums up Cooking Mama and its demographic. That's not a bad thing by the way, they just know their audience. I have to say though, I do enjoy the odd go.

  • Lucidmike78

    Posted May 12, 2009 11:56 pm PT

    I love cooking, and I love the DS, but Cooking Mama could be a lot better.

    My favorites out of the genre is Hell's Kitchen and Cake Mania 1 & 2 for the DS. And on the Wii, Order Up! is probably the best cooking game I've played today.

  • aura_enchanted

    Posted May 12, 2009 10:02 pm PT

    agreed lamprey im just waiting on iron chef momma and then ill be set. bobby flay prepare to be served XD

  • lamprey263

    Posted May 12, 2009 8:11 pm PT

    sadly one of the few games on the Wii that was any good, but it's good to see it got the recognition

  • Flatland013975

    Posted May 12, 2009 6:40 pm PT

    Cooking Mama is a really silly game, but it's fun anyway ^_^ It's a bit troubling how "Mama" doesn't look much like a "Mama."

    Next up: Babysitting Mama. Also includes difficulty modes like "Easy," "Normal," "Heroic," and "Legendary."

  • Chico_Azteca

    Posted May 12, 2009 6:37 pm PT

    si i shall ask again, Gamespot are you aware of the Gold&Silver Remakes?

  • nappan

    Posted May 12, 2009 4:48 pm PT

    I should add, in all fairness, that I don't own a Wii, (don't like it either), and do own a gaming PC and the other consoles... if Cooking Mama represented the MAINSTREAM of what I got on my systems, I'd probably want very much to hurt something.

  • nappan

    Posted May 12, 2009 4:46 pm PT

    If you haven't played it, don't knock it. As Aura Enchanted says, it really is a good game. Remember, animation, comics, and games fill FAR more niches in Asia in general, and Japan in particular than they do anywhere else. ESPECIALLY the USA/Europe/AU/etc... Ask someone what they think of an anime about tennis, or a girl's baseball team, or Go (the game)... and they tend to scoff. Not so much if they actually WATCH them...

    The flipside would be the really eerie stuff that comes out of Japan too... people always talk about hentai, but for me, it's the HUGE number of dating sims that are the weirdest. Don't getg me wrong, they're both... cultural artifacts... but Cooking Mama and Harvest Moon becoming more popular in the USA is something else altogether. 4 million Americans playing Cooking Mama... that's actually cheery news as I see it.


    That said... I hate playing on handhelds... so I'd kill to see a CM game for a console or PC.

  • aura_enchanted

    Posted May 12, 2009 3:51 pm PT

    cooking mama actually isnt that bad of a game shame its not more involving. id kill for a sweet cooking periphreal set.

  • pukmok

    Posted May 12, 2009 3:39 pm PT

    http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=254

    Only good thing about this game is the comic making fun of it that made me laugh.

  • SoNin360

    Posted May 12, 2009 3:34 pm PT

    Well this shows how well of a taste in games a lot of DS owners have lol, or at least what age group they are in...

  • DeadEndPanda

    Posted May 12, 2009 3:32 pm PT

    those silly americans, why agen did they buy this? :v

  • TaMuK711

    Posted May 12, 2009 3:30 pm PT

    So when do we get some GOOD games for a Nintendo console?

  • TehEliteElite

    Posted May 12, 2009 3:08 pm PT

    Milk it! Er... her... >_>

  • Madmangamer364

    Posted May 12, 2009 3:02 pm PT

    Congrats to Majesco for getting a successful new brand off of the ground in Cooking Mama, which I have to say I think it's well deserving of the success it has received. I know that it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but the series is one of the few new properties on Nintendo's systems that has actually understood what it wanted to do and reached out to its intended audience. Of course, most people tend to ignore its success because of what it is, but that doesn't dismiss that fact that it is doing something that many claim isn't possible to do these days, and that's be a third party franchise that is doing well on a Nintendo platform.

    It's also good to see a publisher that has struggled with big-budget games find something worthwhile to call its own. Well done!

  • Xenon-

    Posted May 12, 2009 2:49 pm PT

    Shovelware ftw! YAY!

  • hatieshorrer

    Posted May 12, 2009 2:38 pm PT

    Now shes Cooking get it

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