Nintendo to invade Korea; teams up with MMORPG dev

Nintendo's been doing great since the release of the Wii and it seems their ambitions are still growing exponentially by the day. In a recent press conference with the Korean media, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced plans to localize Nintendo's systems in the country. A localized version of the DS Lite is scheduled to hit Korean retailers on January 18 next year, and Nintendo also plans to release the Wii in the Asian peninsula sometime in late 2007.

The most interesting topic discussed, however, was that Nintendo would be starting a partnership with NEXON, publishers of the popular MMO Maple Story.

“We plan to actively support Korean game software developers who have great expertise in developing online games and support their advances into foreign markets, Nintendo has started a game development partnership with NEXON, creator of the online racing game Crazyracing Kartrider and Korean publisher of the popular MMORPG MapleStory.”

A DS version of Maple Story is currently in development and is scheduled for an early 2007 release in Korea. Now, this is awesome news for Ninty fans in my opinion. An entire MMO on the DS sounds awesome. The big question is, will they fix their botched-up online service before this game hits retailers?

[Via Wii N]