South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has recently joined the ranks of Sony and Microsoft, regarding Nintendo with envious eyes and drawing his plans against the Wii. Jealous of Nintendo’s success in his home country, Lee lamented South Korea’s lack of console development.
“A lot of our elementary school children have Nintendo game machines,” he whines. “Why can’t our companies develop products like that?”
However, the President’s comments are met with little more than disdain from his country’s companies, as the Korean games industry found fault with the President’s words.
“It would be great if the software industry here was healthy enough to produce a lot of games, which would drive up the sales of handheld consoles and introduce more products onto the market,” explains GamePark exec Park Sang-hoon. “However, as a latecomer, we have the difficulty of proving our products first and securing third parties later.”
One anonymous mobile game developer is more aggressive, stating: “Talking about Nintendo is out of touch, when you consider that the local software market is virtually on life-support. Piracy and lack of quality personnel has killed the vibrancy of the Korean software market, and I wonder whether the government has ever been serious about fostering the country’s software industry. It’s telling that most of the computers at government agencies rely on pirated software.”
And finally, another unnamed industry figure places the blame squarely on Lee’s government: “You don’t have the right to be daydreaming about Nintendo, when Korean online game firms, which are actually doing well overseas, feel they could do better if the government wasn’t biting at their ankles.”
So, you can expect South Korea’s new Nentindo Wuu to outclass and outperform all major consoles worldwide this Spring!
