::A Geek in Korea::

My wife was watching television when she said, "What the…a Nintendo DS commercial?"

Nintendo doesn’t have any sort of presence in Korea in the advertising space outside of hardcore import shops. That is, until now. They are now officially promoting the Korean version of Brain training, as well as a version of English educational study that focuses on listening and dictation for the TOEIC tests that are popular here. They have testimonials (kids studying English!) and spokes person playing the game.

This is a wonderful time to get the word out, as the Lunar New Year celebrations are coming around, and children get the bulk of their spending cash for the entire year in the next few weeks.
I’ve been saying this for three years now since the launch of the Nintendo DS. Once English learning software gets published on this machine, there will be a wildfire move for adoption as a hardware platform. It’s online, it’s portable, it’s cheaper that a phone, and students can study and play games on it. My students that have seen a DS lite didn’t know what it was, and it’s been on sale for nearly a year in Korea. Unless you go to game stores, it’s just not a common sight. Once mother’s hear they can buy a gadget that can double as a dictionary, a game machine, a portable internet browser, and a study tool, they’re going to be all over it.

You have no idea how boring it is to teach TOEIC. You play a tape, the students circle an answer. You play a cd, they write down something. The students hate it. The teachers hate it. Watch this testimonial and see girls HAVING FUN studying. This is going to be huge.

It’s so rare they my hobby and my job collide.