Nintendo Moving To Korea

Recently, as reported by the Korean newspaper JoongAng Daily, Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata announced intentions to expand the company into the South Korean market. This may come as a surprise to many, considering that Nintendo products reach much of the rest of the world and the fact that translating between Korean and Japanese is relatively simple, both languages possessing nearly identical grammar. So why hasn't Nintendo been active in Korea up until this point, and what is the significance of this announcement? I've spent some time in Korea and I believe I may have some answers.


As a nation with one of the highest per capita rates of broadband penetration in the world, South Korea is obviously both technologically capable and rich enough to be a valuable market for foreign consumer electronics. However, the availability of broadband is telling. In fact, South Korean gaming culture is drastically different from what is common in the United States or Japan. Consoles and home gaming are not the norm, nor are arcades. Instead, the cities of South Korea are dotted with PC Bangs, or internet cafes, that are so numerous and inexpensive as to make any other method of gaming irrelevant. The last time I was in Seoul, I often stopped at PC Bangs throughout the day to contact people or check my e-mail. At every place I've been to, the price has been set at roughly a dollar per hour, and everytime I've gone the places have been full of gamers playing homegrown Korean MMOs or Counter Strike clones together, cheering and yelling. The gaming culture is actually incredibly social there, more akin to Eastern Europe than any other place I know of.


This socialness is a vital aspect of South Korean culture. I've heard it said that a Korean person would rather go hungry than eat alone, and it may seem to be an exageration, but I can't remember ever seeing a Korean person actually eating alone in Seoul. Perhaps some of the same social pressures apply to the gaming culture there. So the question must be asked, what does Nintendo have to offer to Korea, a culture that has its own style of play and has shown incredible acumen developing games suited to Korean tastes?

My initial answer was not much, honestly, but then I gave it a bit more thought. The barriers to widespread adoption of Nintendo products in Korea are many, the universal availability of the PC Bangs, places to meet friends and play together, coupled with a nationalistic competitiveness between Korean and Japanese products may make things very difficult for Nintendo to overcome. In fact, I'm not sure I can really see home consoles taking off excessively in South Korea anytime soon. However, the wireless capabilities of the DS and its portability may present a compelling opportunity for game developers in Korea. Nintendo has already announced its intentions to work closely with Korean developers, and the idea of porting popular Korean MMOs or creating new ones for play on the go to either the DS or the Wii may lure a number of developers. The potential to reach enormous foreign console markets alone may be a powerful draw. Once Korean games are on Nintendo systems, the systems themselves would become much more valuable to Korean consumers, leading perhaps to the same sort of universal adoption of the DS that Japan has already displayed (they are ALWAYS sold out). Time will tell whether or not the Korean public will embrace Nintendo products, but there are clearly many IPs that would be easily ported, such as Ragnarok Online or Maple Story, and I for one look forward to playing them on a DS at some point in the near future.