Nintendo sells over 500,000 'Wii' game consoles in S. Korea

SEOUL, April 29 (Yonhap) -- Japanese gaming giant Nintendo Co. 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 appealed among
gamers here, 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 2 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 here 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" here.
According to a report by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the software piracy
rate in South Korea stood at 23.4 percent last year, down 1.6 percent from a year
earlier.
ygkim@yna.co.kr
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