By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter
High-tech video game players are attracting young people and their parents more than ever as the May 5 Children's Day approaches.
Sony's PlayStation, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii are forming a tight three-way race, with each of them offering discounts or new games.
The most aggressive among the big three makers is Nintendo, which launched its Wii console on April 26. The company aired TV commercials and ran newspaper and magazine ads in massive quantities during the first week of sales, featuring popular actor Won Bin.
Nintendo Korea refused to reveal sales figures due to company policy. But local game magazines estimate that more than 10,000 units were sold in the first four days.
The firm expects that it will sell much more during the Children's Day weekend, when it is customary for parents to give presents to their kids. Some hasty expectations are that Wii will break the record of the Nintendo DS portable game player, which sold more than 1.5 million units in Korea in little more than a year.
``Wii is selling smoothly. We appreciate Korean consumers' affection for Wii,'' said Kim Sang-yeon, spokesperson for Nintendo Korea.
Wii is currently the best-selling video game player in the world with more than 20 million sold worldwide until last December. It has a motion-sensitive remote controller, called ``Wiimote,'' with which gamers can imitate various actions, such as swinging a baseball bat, hurling a bowling ball or pointing a rifle at a target. It is selling for 220,000 won in Korea.
A downside for expatriates is that the Korean version does not support other languages such as English or Japanese, and it does not run game CDs bought from other countries. The firm does not repair players purchased outside Korea either.
Feeling the heat from Wii, its rivals are trying to attract customers on price. Microsoft lowered the price of its Xbox 360 by 20,000 won to 369,000 won this week. Since being launched in 2006, Xbox is believed to have sold more than 150,000 units in Korea, far more than the 50,000 PlayStation3s.
Microsoft says that it offers more than 200 game titles to users, compared to five for the Nintendo Wii.
``The winner of the next-generation video game market will be the one who can provide high-quality digital contents to customers,'' said Kim Dae-jin, executive of Microsoft Korea. ``From that perspective, we clearly have an advantage over others.''
Sony has tried to find a breakthrough by partnering with KT. The two companies have launched a promotion event, selling Sony's PlayStation at only 90,000 won for new subscribers to KT's Mega TV and MegaPass services. The original price of the PlayStation3 is 348,000 won.