C3 Special | Nintendo’s Wii – Good for the Seoul?

First of all there is talk of how 'just' ten games on the market right now is not helping matters as consumers are eager for a wider variety of products to choose from. On top of this only three of those are actually from Nintendo itself (the launch duo of Wii Play and Wii Sports, plus Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games that only hit on 29th May, whilst the Third Party line-up from Day One was FIFA 08, Elebits, Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, Super Swing Golf, Zack & Wiki, Namco Museum Remix and Guitar Hero III, whilst Soulcalibur Legends launches on 5th June). Yet that should not be a big issue since the DS launched with just English Training and Brain Training from Nintendo over there last January and managed just fine with a paltry Third Party line-up to begin with as well. In fact, this selection of games is much stronger than that of the DS's first month by far. Whatever the case, Nintendo's tactic in that instance was to ensure that it brought its existing line-up over as soon as possible after launch, with at least one big name coming each month, if not more in certain months (New Super Mario Bros., Animal Crossing, Mario Kart DS, Metroid Prime Hunters, Yoshi's Island DS – all massive hits and launching within months of each other). As well as this there was a slew of Third Party games not too long afterwards, and even some games developed specifically by Korean developers. With the Nintendo DS taking the country by storm and selling a million in its first year, going on to sell an amazing 100,000 units per month as of January 2008, that course of action has worked just fine. The Wii should equally thrive as and when the releases pick up steam.


But anyway, perhaps people should not be looking at the fact that the Nintendo DS has sold 1.5 million units in about a year and a half and look more towards how the 'next generation' platforms have seriously struggled so far, with the Xbox 360 having only sold 150,000 units in two years and the PlayStation 3 dragging its way to a meagre 50,000 sales in its first year on sale in South Korea, despite seeing the PlayStation 2 take the country by storm previously. Suddenly the 35,000-40,000 Wii consoles sold in ONE MONTH does not seem too awful. For those still comparing Wii to DS, remember that, with the exception of the PlayStation 2, a home console is never likely to out-sell a portable system considering one household may well own two or more of the same portable, but is only really going to have one home console such as Wii since multiplayer gaming can be done on that and that alone without the need for more purchases, unlike in the handheld scene. That may well be an extremely obvious point to readers, but sadly it is one that some analysts and Industry insiders seem to frequently overlook.

What other reasons are being given for the Wii underperforming (and since Nintendo of Korea does not actually appear to have officially commented, it could just be that Korea reporters are getting these 'underperforming' comments from retailers such as TechnoMart, one of the largest electronics chains in the country, not the main source itself)? Apparently the fact that Nintendo has created a whole new region code for the Korean market is causing issue with many members of the public. Why would this be a problem, though, when the whole point is so Nintendo can release Korean language versions of its games, like it has been doing with DS? Well, the first comes from a piracy point of view; in other words a very poor argument indeed. Koreans have been playing modified Japanese Wii consoles for some time now due to the immense delay in localisation and Nintendo bringing out this new version of Wii means it has put a (temporary) stop to the pirates that were hoping to crack Korean Wii consoles straight away and have their wicked ways with the system, be it for playing copied games or tinkering in the homebrew scene. The second issue is the lack of backwards compatibility. As we all know, you can play GameCube games on Wii…but it would appear that there is a roadblock here. Back in the GameCube days Nintendo did not care about South Korea, with former president of the company Hiroshi Yamauchi believing the region to be a small, insignificant market that was a waste of Nintendo's time. As a result the Japanese company left the distribution of the console to long-term partner Daewon Inc, a company thought by many sources to be rather incompetent, or at least not particularly attentive industrious, when it came to marketing Nintendo products in Korea. This meant that GameCube games appeared in their original Japanese format, without any translation work at all being done. Do you see the problem now? Brand new Korean Wii region format plus old Japanese GameCube game format does not equal a positive outcome for those wanting to play their back catalogue. Anyone that invested in the non-translated titles for that system will not be able to slip them into the Wii and keep on playing like the rest of the world. In spite of this, the matter should hardly be a make-or-break element for a Wii purchase, considering how poorly the GameCube sold compared to Xbox and the behemoth that was the PlayStation 2 over there. Nintendo fans were more enamoured with their Game Boy Advance SPs at that time, so much so barely anyone cared about the Japanese GameCube with its foreign-language games, and those gamers should be more than happy that they can just stick their GBA games in the DS without any difficulty…


But that is not the be all and end all in terms of excuses already being given for the Wii's supposed disappointing first month on sale. The English version of popular Korean newspaper Chosun has revealed that experts believe the great success of the Nintendo DS is in fact working against Wii. According to these 'experts', whomever they may be, parents are getting sick and tired of seeing their children sitting around playing on the DS all day and are thusly refusing to even consider picking up what English Chosun deems the "ambitious follow-up model" to Nintendo's portable platform. Firstly, since when has the Wii been considered a successor to DS? Secondly, is Nintendo not aiming the Wii squarely at the older demographic anyway, as revealed in the batch of TV advertisement placements Cubed³ posted last month? When the system becomes bogged down with children's games, then maybe that claim can be made. Not for now, however. And finally, this goes against anything that has been heard from Cubed³'s sources, with children more likely to be playing their DS consoles outside in the sunshine with their friends or in the playground during school time, with homework being the main port of call when at home in the evenings (they are an extremely studious population on the whole with parents being strict about how much playtime children can have in the evenings…. In addition, the younger demographic have not been lured in by the Wii Sports advertising anyway, with Mario still being the main talk of the schooling age, whilst Wii is grabbing the attention of the eighteen-plus age range so far thanks to games such as the very PC-centric Zack & Wiki, as well as, Guitar Hero III, FIFA 08 and Super Swing Golf, the Tecmo-published sequel to Wii's version of Korean developer Ntreev Soft's ridiculously popular online PC Pangya Golf title.



The solution that economic site MK offers for getting more attention focused on Wii is for Nintendo to work closer with external developers. Nintendo has already stated its intentions to support smaller Korean developers last year and the fruits of this have already been sewn, as the likes of Korean developer CTGame Entertainment and Studio Nine have created titles on DS exclusively for the market there and CyberFront is localising / publishing Japanese and Western games for the handheld. We also know that Nintendo is working closely with the people behind Maple Story, Nexon, with a DS exclusive version of the popular PC game due either at the end of the year or very early in 2009 (as Cubed³ was recently told by the company – expect more details closer to that time and an interview) and it is expected that the same sort of deals are being agreed for Wii development as we speak. There was also talk of a deal going ahead with NCSoft, the Korean developer behind Lineage, although it looked like whatever was on offer was taken off the table when it signed a deal with Sony for exclusive PlayStation 3 content. However, NCSoft's PR team assures us that only a few games will be coming to Sony's system and that there is still hope for Nintendo fans.

As an aside from all of this sales potential talk, something people have yet to discuss is the online Virtual Console service and how impressive it is, starting with how everything is much cheaper over there. To buy a 1,000 Points card all Koreans have to pay is the equivalent of £5.00, as opposed to the £7.50 Europeans pay. On top of this, the range of games available may be smaller due to only launching on 26th April and the number of formats lower in number most likely because of licensing issues on the SEGA and Hudson side for the time being, meaning just the NES, SNES and Nintendo 64 are currently on offer, but the prices of the games on each format is also cheaper than here. NES/Famicom games are 400 Points, SNES/Super Famicom games are 600 and N64 titles just 800 Points! Nintendo has not skimped on the classics either. Whilst Mario Kart 64 may be the only N64 game for now (Starfox 64 is joining the service soon), classics on the SNES include Contra III, Super Metroid, Cybernator, Gradius III, Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country III (F-Zero and Zelda III are to join very soon). On the NES side, Bubble Bobble will arrive in the near future and currently there are fan favourites such as River City Ransom, Super Mario Bros. 3, Kirby's Adventure, Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., as well as the long forgotten Antarctic Adventure from Konami, featuring the penguin many of you will know from the Parodius games. And this is with only three publishers on-board the service for the time being! Given how the NES and SNES were extremely popular in the past, this could be a massive draw for many older Korean gamers that have not been tempted by PC emulators.


The only potential drawback of the service is that the 99% of the games are in English, rather than Korean (certain games are being translated by a company called WindySoft – great name!), due to the reality mentioned earlier about Daewon and the terrible lack of Korean-language games appearing on Nintendo formats in the past. However, speaking with several Koreans recently, this is thought to be a much better option than just having the Japanese editions shoved onto the service, since the youth of Korea start learning English from a young age anyway (around the age of thirteen at school, but many families like to start their children off with private lessons from the age of eight), so it is seen as being complementary to their education (at least by those I spoke with). See, who said learning could not be fun?

Anyway, getting back onto the main topic…To conclude, on the whole it does appear that the Wii launch has been quite tepid, just as the Nintendo DS Lite launch was in South Korea with Nintendo evidently 'testing the water' before unleashing the big guns. But despite this, it is clear that Nintendo's slow-but-sure approach in terms of releases, teamed with a constant barrage of TV coverage, print advertisements and other forms publicity featuring families and famous stars has already worked some of its magic, helping Wii start far stronger than the other home console competitors from Sony and Microsoft. And with some extremely large-name games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime: Corruption, Mario Kart Wii and even the likes of Big Brain Academy for the casual crowd, yet to even hit the market the fun has yet to begin…Wii could very well still become the life and Seoul of the party!