Title says it all really. I read on here a couple of weeks back that the 3ds was being released in korea, and was wondering whether this site will be able to track the figures?

If so, it will only be under global numbers.

Yeah thats what i thought. There should be a pretty big spike in the 3ds's numbers next week then unless i am mistaken?

I'm not sure about that. Korea is infamously hostile to non-PC games. I could imagine a small spike, but considering how only a few million DS's were ever sold in the country, this likely won't be a big deal. It doesn't help that the launch will be a bit lackluster: Super Mario 3D Land, Tekken 3D, and some weird Fashion game are the only launch titles.

Describe hostile, I'm curious.

Or is it just simply they just buy don't anything that isn't PC based?

South Koreas gaming culture is heavily centered around Internet cares, always has been. This is a country with 2 Television stations devoted to StarCraft. Home consoles and dedicated handhelds have not gained as much traction as cell phone gaming and pc games.

Hostile is probably the wrong word. Basically, until 2001, Korea banned the import of Japanese game systems.The only console to make any real headway at first was the PS2, and that was because of a strong push by Sony. Compared to other markets though, numbers were low, and much of the business came from PS2-cafes where people would play sports games together. More recently, the PS3 and 360 had trouble leaving much of a mark thanks to high prices. The Wii was only released there in 2008, and the slow release of games hurt sales there. For example, Brawl was a 2010 release. However, I think the Wii did eventually hit a milliion

Handhelds, meanwhile, have had mixed progress. The PSP was a hit, but mostly for its media properties, rather than its game library. The DS, meanwhile, only was officially released around late 2006, and had some sucess, but it took 3 years to sell its first 2 million units. Meanwhile, piracy was an issue even before the official launch, hurting software sales.

In short, a combination of corporate failures and the tastes of the Korean public are to blame for non-PC game sales there. Localization is also a problem. For example, demand for Zelda: The Wind Waker was low back in 2003, meaning there was never an official translation for the text-heavy game, further hurting sales for both it and the GameCube. Unlike in many European countries, knowing a second language or two is not necessarily common. But ultimately, South Korea is an already crowded market thanks to the PC, and is not that big a market to begin with. It's population is less than that of Italy, France, or the UK, and is less than half of Japan's. This further deemphasizes the amount of work companies invest into their games there.

So yeah. South Korea is about as bad a market for non-PC video games as you can find in the First World.

Thanks for the info.  Now I have a better idea on thier market.

Hong Kong is seperated from Main China. You can sell things in Hong Kong while not selling them in China.

I think you are right but HK still has it's own laws and such. It may happen. Do you know if they would be the first in China?