Korea and the PS3: destined for love, or marketing bust?

by Nick Doerr { Aug 19th 2007 at 2:30PM }

Korea is full of developers that desperately want to make a mark on the console world. While neither were fantastic, look at the impressive graphics that graced the ambitious, but ultimately shallow and annoying, Magna Carta for the PS2, or the broken remake of Astonishia Story for the PSP. Korean developers want to get involved in consoles, since people seem more and more interested in buying them. Korea gets the brunt of their attention from their PC endeavors, so we've got to ask: is Korea going to show a stronger market share with the PS3 and maintain the popularity of the PSP, or not?

Since Gamasutra posted a pretty lengthy look at the history of consoles in Korea, we're going to give the abridged conclusions here. By all means, check out the full article since it's really quite entertaining. As far as the PSP goes, it's still fairly popular, but mainly used for watching movies while on subways, etc. It's not much of the "short burst" gaming system, which is why the DS has gained a lot of ground there.

The PlayStation 3 has hit a wall in Korea, since most of the "hardcore" crowd have already put their money on the 360. All the negative pre-launch press didn't help, either. The system's still selling, but until the big titles hit, it's not going to have any remarkable sales numbers. The PS3 may, in time, ride on the success of the PS2 in Korea, but until that time, there's nothing fantastic going on. In short, Sony's got to step up to the plate and deliver some good marketing strategies in Korea or else even those Korean console developers will stop trying and that would be a shame, stamping out potential.

Tags: korea, ps3, psp, sony

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Andy @ Aug 19th 2007 3:14PM

With my DS I prefer to play single player and with my PS3 I prefer online, except for NHL 2K7 because the online doesn't work. I will proabably get the PSP2

Speaking of Korean, does anyone have a recipe for Korean garlic potatoes. They have a crunchy garlicky sweet shell and a soft middle. I absolutly love them!

SkeetSkiLee @ Aug 19th 2007 3:41PM

korea rocks at making MMOs! Maybe they can help bring MMOs to PS3.

micklol @ Aug 19th 2007 4:08PM

Do you know Koreans invented PS3 and video games?
NO it's true, their PS3 games are super great within Korean market, we are just not fortunate enough to see those games. All Japanese developers and Blizzard ripped off their game ideas and concept. They make the greatest game in Korea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mr Khan @ Aug 19th 2007 4:37PM

I don't have a good grasp of the Korean market, except in that South Korea has one of the broadest working WiBro networks in the world, and their nation is both the most wired (as in highest % of people online) and wireless (because of that large WiBro Network)

PS3 certainly has more accessible wireless than 360 (although slightly less so than Wii), and, if they really push the social networking games (MMOs of the non-Versus match type), and tailor HOME somewhat to their liking (flesh out the interpersonal interface), they could certainly be the console of choice for that market, certainly

Consolcwby @ Aug 19th 2007 10:05PM

Korea should make RTS console games, especially since the PS3 can use mice (mouses? =D ), and because there isn't any for the PS3 right now... Although I am VERY interested in that new Tom Clancy game: Endwar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik21W-XKA3k ... =) I love PC RTSs, so a StarCraft clone wouldn't be so bad on the consoles... =D

SkeetSkiLee @ Aug 19th 2007 10:36PM

i dont like the part where he said korean games are annoying... they're more like UN-creative... all they need is more work. more chance in my opinion and they'll get better. it's not like magna carta and astonishia story were the only games they made.