Nintendo sets sights on Korea

Nintendo is planning to strengthen its GameCube businesses in Korea, according to Bloomberg Japan. The move is thought to be timed with Korean government lifting the embargo on sales of Japanese console games.

Japanese entertainment products, including movies and games, have traditionally been banned from Korea, but ongoing efforts that began in earnest back in 1998 have softened the Korean government's stance on such restrictions.

The ban on portable and PC games from Japan has already been lifted in Korea, and currently the home console sector is the only area that remains affected by the ban. According to a report by NHK, a nonprofit broadcasting association in Japan, the Korean government has decided that it will lift the ban on Japanese home console games (along with music CDs) either late this year or early next year.

Nintendo representative Ken Toyota commented that the company hopes to sell its games aggressively if the market in Korea is indeed opened up. Until now, Nintendo has been distributing English versions of its home console games in Korea to technically circumvent the ban of Japanese games. If and when the ban is lifted, the first genre scheduled to be made available by Nintendo will be action games, according to the company, as they require less knowledge of Japanese language compared to other genres, such as role-playing games.

Nintendo has plans to translate its home console games into Korean, something it intends to do with Game Boy titles as well.