Korea Gets MMORPG Success, Xbox Antipathy

Thanks to GameSpot for their story revealing Korean MMORPG Lineage II has racked up significant amounts of initial subscribers in its native country. According to the article about the Unreal-engine PC sequel, "in the game's first five days in release, publisher NCsoft has tallied more than 130,000 paid users." However, SirBruce's subscription page points out that many subscribers to the initial, 4-million subscriber Lineage: The Blood Pledge "play in 'PC baangs', Internet cybercafes in [South] Korea that buy Lineage access from the company and then sell it at hourly rates to customers", making subscriber comparisons with games like Star Wars Galaxies more difficult. Elsewhere, GI.Biz reveals the PlayStation 2 is the most popular console in Korea, although only 600,000 strong, with 92.5 percent preferring it over the 60,000-selling Xbox, as "...players cited the lack of Korean language software and poor customer service as their key problems with the Xbox."

Comments

Which Korea?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two nations called "Korea". The article is sloppy when it refers to events in Korea without saying which one. Of course we know they don't have Xbox in North Korea, so it must mean South Korea. But next time, don't leave off half of the country's name. It is like an article about the United Kingdom referring to just "The Kingdom".

Re:Blantant bias?

[Yokaze]

> pre-set friendly relationship
Due to some historic circumstances (occupation of Korea pre-and while WWII), the goverment of (South) Korea did/does not exactly encourage Japanese imports, which have cultural strings attached. (Music, TV, films, computer games).

Here some headlines from Asahi Shinbun (in English):
Further easing of Japan culture ban
Dated: September 17, 2003

This stance (banning Japanese culture) may not reflect the public opinion. Still, it is not something I've heard about Canada/US/Mexico.