By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter
Nintendo said it has made a soft landing on the South Korean gaming market with its portable player this year, which gives a green light for the planned arrival of the more lucrative Wii game console next year.
The Japanese game company said Saturday that it sold more than 580,000 units of Nintendo DS (Dual Screen) portable player in less than nine months from Jan. 18 to Sept. 30. It also said that more than 1.2 million software titles have been sold during the same period.
Such are respectable achievements considering other video game companies such as Sony and Microsoft have suffered in Korea because of the strong presence of home-made, PC-based games in the local market.
``Nintendo's aim is to expand the gaming population, and it has appealed to many Korean consumers so now a wider generation of people are enjoying Nintendo games,'' Mineo Koda, chief of Nintendo Korea, said in a statement. ``We are especially glad that our Mario character is receiving warm affection from Koreans as shown in the brisk sales of games featuring the character.''
Nintendo was almost a nonentity in the Korean gaming market until it began selling the Korean version of DS mini console this January. Still, many suspected its success because of the Korean gamers' fondness on PC-based free online games and the country's rampant software piracy.
The company couldn't avoid troubles in coping with the illegal software. Though it has continually warned that it would take legal actions, a large and growing number of users are downloading illegally copied games through the Internet rather than buying the originals at game shops.
Selling more than a half million units in such a short period is nevertheless an encouraging sign to Nintendo. The firm's products are considered low-tech, compared to Sony's PlayStation series and Microsoft's Xbox series. But by providing cleverly designed games such as ``Brainage'' and ``Nintendogs,'' it has fared better against the two bigger rivals. The firm estimates it has sold 5.3 million DS portable players worldwide.
In order to catch the female audience, the firm used popular movie stars in its TV advertisements in Korea. Methodical localization of game titles is another reason behind the brisk sales. Some 40 Korean companies are engaged in developing games for Nintendo, and the first Korean-made game title was released last week.
Nintendo's imminent mission is to increase the revenue from the game title sales, which is traditionally the main source of income, by curbing the software piracy. But in the longer term, the belated arrival of Wii console is expected to be the real challenge.
The firm first planned to bring the highly popular Wii machines to Korea by December. But it said on Saturday that the arrival was postponed for a few months. The company is having a worldwide supply shortage of Wii ahead of the Christmas season in America and Europe.