APRIL 11, 2008 • Nintendo confirmed that it would launch the Wii in South Korea on April 26 for 220,000 won ($220). Wii games will be priced at 39,000 won ($39). To guard against imported titles, the South Korean Wii will only play discs released in that market. Although questions about how well consoles can sell in a country where gamers prefer PCs, more than 1.4 million DSs have been sold since January 2007.
Impact: Korea has been very much a PC game centric market. However, there is growing potential for console and portable systems. The Nintendo DS launched at 150,000 won ($150) and in its first year exceeded the one million unit sales mark. This meant it quickly passed the PlayStation 2 as the best selling game system ever in Korea. It took nearly three years for the PS2 to reach the one million sales level in Korea. DFC forecasts that Wii sales in Korea will be slightly below DS sales, but the system should sell at a faster pace than the PlayStation did.
