SEOUL, Apr 29, 2009 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) -- NTDOY | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Japanese gaming giant Nintendo Co. (TSE:7974) has sold more than 500,000 units of its popular "Wii" console in South Korea, its local unit said Wednesday.

Introduced a year ago in South Korea, Wii has gained widespread appeal among gamers, especially among families with children Nintendo Korea said.

The company also said that domestic sales of its "DS Lite" portable gaming device hit more than 2.5 million units after reaching a sales milestone of two million in February.

The palm-sized device was launched in South Korea in January 2007 along with Nintendo's official operations in South Korea.

Popular sales of the two gaming consoles are regarded by many local tech experts as a noteworthy success in South Korea, where on-line computer games are generally more popular than console gaming.

Sales of Nintendo-related software products, however, fell short of the success seen in its hardware sales.

"Wii Sports," the most popular title among Wii users in South Korea, sold 210,000 units, while "New Super Mario Brothers," the most widely sold gaming title for DS Lite, barely reached 440,000 units.

Mineo Koda, head of Nintendo Korea, earlier attributed the relatively lower sales of software products to what he called "rampant software piracy" in South Korea.

According to a report by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the software piracy rate in South Korea stood at 23.4 per cent last year, down 1.6 per cent from a year earlier.

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2295960/

Do we have numbers for the other platforms. The Wii has certainly taken off, that's for sure.


I think the last numbers I saw had PS3 at ~100k and 360 sold ~200k. That was around a year ago though.

I vaguely remember seeing some DS, PSP and PS3 figures for South Korea, along with other nations, through the end of 2007 but I'm not about to go through a year's worth of posts on the site to find them. Nintendo has said DS sold 1m/year Korea for two years though I believe.

That about what I remember as well.

Hmm not bad. DS really took off in that region haha. Wow that's not bad for the South Korean market. Wii not doing bat itself, but still DS is really what has exploded to me. Hopefully they'll continue to support the gamers int he region and provide them with more content. Even though piracy is an issue, hopefully they can continue to battle it and get a competitive software market in the region.

Xbox Live penetration in South Korea puts it at 21.6% of Japanese users, or ~220,000 hardware units sold.

However, that may not be entirely accurate, since there are tons of unused J-accounts by Westerners that may inflate the numbers.

In November 2007, according to Gamasutra and others, the Xbox marketing coordinator, Dae Hwan Lim was quoted that the 360 had hit 100,000 units, give or take, and was in a much better position than the PS3 was.

That's..... great, i guess

That's pretty damn good for a fledgling market. This is laying the groundwork for massive growth in Asia once the gaming industry has finished tapping the European market.