Taken from here :

http://www.cubed3.com/news/8920/1/South_Korean_Wii_Plans_Outlined,_Plus_More_DS_Success

Originally Nintendo had confirmed that 270,000 units of the Nintendo DS Lite had been sold across South Korea in the first four months of its existence, but now Nintendo of Korea has revealed that the dual-screen portable has, in its time on sale between 18th January and 30th September, passed the 580,000 mark.

On top of this, with a strong line-up consisting of nintendogs, New Super Mario Bros., Brain Training and Super Mario 64 DS, plus clever marketing using famous faces from the Korean entertainment world, an impressive 1.2 million pieces of software have also been sold. With games like Kirby: Mouse Attack and Elite Beat Agents released very recently, the quality has not slowed down and Yoshi's Island is on the way next month, along with Animal Crossing in the near future.

But it is not just Nintendo releasing big games, as there are around forty independent Korean developers making games for the system right now, with the first ever fully-Korean developed DS game actually hitting the streets a few days ago (Chungjeon! Hanguginui Sangsingnyeok DS from Studio9, for those interested - a Korean-specific general knowledge quiz).

As for Wii, the console was set to launch in December, but due to massive demand around the rest of the world, Nintendo's Satoru Iwata has stated it has now been pushed back to early 2008 (with a Chinese launch also set for next year).

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It seems that Nintendo will have a bright future in Korea too.

EDIT : I remeber that a famous korean MMORPG , Maple Story , is heading to Nintendo DS . 

wow 0.5 is actually quite huge.. Wii releasing there would mean..domination..err.wait..

more domination?

Actually, 500k in Korea for a handheld isn't that huge. PSP has sold over 1m+ there already, as far as I remember.

How long has the PSP been out in Korea? What are the monthly sales figures? Any software figures?

PSP was lauched in Korea in May 2005. Nintendo DS was launched in Korea in January 2007.

I found this article by Korea Times with date 09/04/2007 that talk about the new model of PSP ( slim ) .

In this article there is the quote :

" A total of 360,000 PSP consoles have been sold in Korea, accounting for about 60 percent of the portable game console market here. Nintendo DS, a major competitor in the market, has sold about 300,000."

Maybe they are talking about units sold to customers until Agust ( I'm not sure ).

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2007/09/123_9547.html

I think that 580K DS units sold to retailers is a great achievement for a portable console and for Nintendo.

EDIT : However , I hope to be of some help for ioi.

Regardless of who wins over there, I think it's great news for us all that Korea is opening up to console gaming. They've long had a huge gaming scene, but it's been almost entirely on the PC for as long as I can remember.

Hopefully now their many talented developers will start working on games that will make their way to the rest of the world as well.

mrstickball's memory was off? If the numbers from the Korean Times are correct then perhaps.

I wonder why the DS is doing so well against the PSP? I think something like Monster Hunter would go over well there.

 I agree with you. Korea , China and India will be very important market in the future.

Actually.....

There is only a very small console gaming market in Korea - the PC gaming market has the vast lions share (60%+ of the revenue in s/w).

The handhelds are a different story. They've always been rather strong, since there is no PC equivilent.

Korea = Germany

I know but the market is there and possibilities too. If console can achieve that large markets they can get healty revenue.

I said " in the future " for this motive .