After Brain Age's release in Japan it was unclear whether or not the game would be adapted for international markets, but Shimada's team knew that hand and voice recognition would eventually be needed for other languages, so they began coordinating with Nintendo of America in January of 2005 and Nintendo of Europe in May of 2005. They had the impressive task of coordinating the development of voice and handwriting recognition for English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish.

The regional offices gathered sample data, performed focus tests, and otherwise aided in the development of the tools, such as helping NCL understand differences among regional dialects. Through the magic of modern communication Shimada's group in NCL coordinated overseas efforts and implemented the software for each region. Conveniently, having a global team also meant there was always someone working on the project somewhere, which is ultimately what kept the project on schedule…even though Shimada himself admits that, looking back, the schedule was back-breaking.

Of course, there is always an unexpected curve-ball, and Nintendo of Europe threw it.

NCL had determined the international languages they would support based on the Nintendo DS language options. But NOE was loud and persistent in its request for Dutch support for maximum market penetration, so Shimada eventually agreed. Given the tight schedule, and the fact that his team was also busily working on kanji support for Brain Age 2 (and Kanji Sonomama DS Rakubiki Jiten in Japan), Nintendo decided to cheat a little and modify the German language profile instead of creating a new one from scratch by adding Dutch words to the German language's sub-dictionaries.