Nintendo’s regional limitations hindering Wii sales in Korea

We hear that all is not well in South Korea for Nintendo, who’s next generation console is taking bad rap from the hardcore elite in the country. The negative gossip all revolves around the fact that the localized Wii consoles are only accepting localized copies of Nintendo games, and from the looks of it, Nintendo isn’t getting corresponding versions of the most demanded titles into the market fast enough. The result: Wii sales have been sluggish at late. More details follow at the full story.

Media limitations spawning from Nintendo’s regional lock controls are hindering the sales of the Nintendo Wii – that’s what a report streaming out of the region says. Nintendo’s division in Korea managed to sell short of the company’s expectations: only 40,000 units were sold in the first month.

The main complaint of most gamers in the country are targeted at Nintendo’s approach to software piracy. Most gamers who’ve adopted the Nintendo Wii in the first months were hardcore fans, and they’ve been looking forward to playing other Japanese-only titles on the next generation console.

The region lock mechanic prevents them from doing so. If the game disc was not meant for the console’s hardcoded region code, the loading of the game is halted. If not for region free hacks and exploits and dedicated Wii products serving similar purposes, this would have hindered sales in many other countries as well.

The Nintendo DS, however, has continued to attract customers since its release last year. To date, the portable console sold more than 1 million in the nation and has become Nintendo’s current pinnacle of success in Korea. More updates as we get them.

Via Korea Times