The cultural stigma against Koreans in Japan will likely never stop. It borders on institutionalized racism. Koreans living in Japan, even through the 90's, were considered second class citizens.

There is a similar cultural bias against the Japanese in Korea due to all the bad blood that happened during WWII and even dating all the way back to 16th century invasion attempts by Hideyoshi.

"Didn't PS2 hit 2 million in Korea?"

Can't confirm that. But it would mean 1 out of every 200 so odd Koreans purchased a PS2 if that's true.

The most PS2 games I saw when I was in Korea was typically at the PX in Yongsan (US military base).

The DS has sold over a million in Korea. In fact it sold over a million in less than a year.

Then the same kids who bought a DS will likely end up buying a Wii in the future.

The DS wasn't even available in Korea (or anywhere for that matter) when I was living there, so I never saw any kids playing with Nintendo handhelds.

The Advance SP was available, but game selection in the electronics mart was very limited. The only carts I bought were compilation carts (non-licensed carts with dozens of games on them). In in the two years I was there, I cannot recall seeing a single Advance not owned by an American.

Uhmm the US has a huge huge huge military presence in South Korea. Many of those XBOX 360s are probably brought there.

koreans actually don't like Japan. It goes way back

Thanks for the updated LTDs. 360 & PS3 have been selling neck and neck since the last time we got numbers for them. Wii launch numbers pretty low, but imported Wiis have been sold in Korea since Japanese launch, so installed base will be higher than this. The import Wiis will be tracked as Japanese sales, though. Also, official Korean Wiis are region locked to Korea only.

It's not quite that big. Maybe about 37k total currently. Maybe less. They've been scaling back military staff there in the wake of Iraq. Simply not enough troops to spread around globally. Prior to 2003, Korea was a non-deployable duty station; not any more. 

Finding video game gear through the PX system is not always a given. Partly due to black market purchasing. It's cheaper to buy through the PX (everything is tax free) if you find someone with PX privileges (not Korean nationals; even those who work on post) who is unscrupulous enough to move goods to Korean nationals, which is illegal unless it's given as a gift. But of course it happens anyway, even with the sales tracking system. Liquor in particular through the PX system is a hot item because of the difference in prices relative to the local economy. 

So the number of consoles being shipped to major installations like Camp Humphries, or Yongsan, Seoul is not actually a huge amount. PX shelves often go bare of consoles, even back in the States on military installations, much less overseas. 

My memory failed me slightly. Last 360 & PS3 numbers I had seen were through August 2007:

PS2: 1331k
PSP: 315k
360: 136k
NDS: 128k
PS3: 5k

Korea is the fourth column (Taiwan is the fifth column):



That would mean since August 360 has only sold 14k in Korea, and PS3 sold 45k. Average of 1750/month for 360, and 5625/month for PS3 since then. NDS has really taken off in Korea. We can see it's a big PC gaming market, and big handheld market too, but when it comes to home consoles, it's not as big as it could be.

PS2 has sold over 1m, but not 2m. NDS is probably closing in fast on PS2 now.

haha Starcraft outsold the ps2. Not surprised at all.