Hi everyone, I've lurked here for about a year or two, and I decided to make an account today because I have stuff I want to talk about! I've long been interested in Korean video game consoles, namely stuff like the Hyundai Comboy 64 because the concept of a local Korean distributor "rebranding" a console is so novel. I know there's an abundance of information on this already, but I guess I'll focus my contribution to this discussion with the Playstation 1, which kind of never gets talked about with this stuff. I posted all the information that I found on reedit, so I'll copy what I wrote here for all of you: PlayStations were illegally sold in Korea as early as 1995. Leading up to March, 1997, KAMA Entertainment essentially bought a large quantity of North American PlayStations for sale in South Korea. However, due to the region-locking practice, these North American consoles had a bit of a mismatch with the predominantly Japanese PlayStation games that existed in the South Korean market. To compensate for this, KAMA opted to install a modified chip in these consoles to allow them to play Japanese games. I'm not entirely sure that Sony was aware of this practice, but it went unnoticed for some time. Apparently, however, the cost of installing these modified chips was high, and many retailers instead preferred to buy Japanese consoles or lower-priced modded consoles from other sources and sell at a lower price (i.e. arbitrage). In any case, KAMA, at the time, couldn't compete with this "black market" of sorts, and ended up going bust. Another contributing factor to their demise, in the video game console space, was the fact that later models were more stringent in their detection of mods, meaning the older modded chips couldn't function as intended (I'm not sure of the technical explanation for this stuff). Not long after, Sony Computer Entertainment Korea was established, and Sony began selling directly to the South Korean market. Anyone have any more info on this? Does anyone actually own a Korean PlayStation? Is there anything different about them?
This is one of the less understood chapters of Korean gaming because, as you stated, there was no proper, partnered distributor for Sony in Korea until Sony itself officially set up shop right around the launch of the PS2. They then embraced a very small library of PS1 games and officially supported them. I suppose Sony did this to embrace the backwards compatible aspects of the PS2 in a market that never officially had PS1 releases until that point. They were undoubtedly cheaper at that time and the library is very small. As for why Sony hesitated to have a proper presence in Korea earlier, it was probably not financially viable or they were simply not comfortable letting another company represent them (it *is* Sony after all) and only moved in after 1998 when the restrictions were relaxed. Now, I would hesitate to call the 1995-2001ish sales of PS1s in Korea "illegal". Remember, in the 90s in Korea, virtually every shop dealt heavily in "illegal" goods. There is no clear picture as to what was really going on but many shop owners simply took trips to Japan and hand-imported inventory themselves. North American region games were imported fairly heavily and the use of region adaptors was commonplace. Super Famicoms were sold in Korea right from their launch in Japan in 1990 and pretty much every console thereafter. These JDM products were brazenly advertised in full page ads in every major game magazine of the day. In many cases, the official Japanese consoles outsold the official Korean ones and virtually all shared the same region code, so for many people it was six of one, half a dozen of the other. None of it was in Korean anyways so if they weren't going to get any real region support, who cared where it came from? Many hardcore collectors insisted on the Japanese versions and looked upon the Korean stuff disdainfully. Little did they know how exceptionally rare and unique these would become 20 years later. There is one other chapter in the Korean PS1 saga which is conspicuously missing here which is the "Tomato Club" release which appear to have been an official line of PS1s sold with pre-installed mod chips into both Japanese and US consoles. There is no special branding aside from stickers on the bottom affixed on top of the original ones. I'm not too familiar with Kama's involvement in the PS lineup except that they also participated in the Saturn's release after Samsung pulled out.
Here's an article I found: http://toyfab.tistory.com/entry/scph-1000-복원-프로젝트-0 1997년 2월부터는 국내에도 PS가 정식으로 수입되게 되는데 카마 엔터프라이즈라는 곳에서 수입하여 소위 카마플스로 불렸던 이 PS는 프리볼트, 미국 게임과 일본 게임 모두 구동 가능, A/S 보장이라는 이점에도 불구하고 용산의 보따리 상인을 통해서 들어오는 PS보다 가격보다 비쌌기 때문에 큰 호응을 얻지 못한다. 출처: http://toyfab.tistory.com/entry/scph-1000-복원-프로젝트-0 [토이팹] Through Google Translate: Since February 1997, PS has been officially imported into Korea. This PS, which is called CAMA PLUS, is imported from CAMA ENTERPRISE. Despite the advantage of A / S guarantee, It does not get much response because it is more expensive than PS coming in through Yongsan's baggage merchant 출처: http://toyfab.tistory.com/entry/scph-1000-복원-프로젝트-0 [토이팹] There is a picture of the bottom stickers here: http://bbs.ruliweb.com/hobby/board/300109/read/27434583?page=10
I think that article corroborates my sources saying that KAMA's "official" PlayStations were too expensive relative to the arbitraged consoles that individual retailers carried. Part of me wants to search for and buy a Korean PS1, but I think to some degree, not only is it rare, but it also isn't in the consciousness of many collectors. Furthermore, there may not be sufficient aesthetic variation to where one might consider it worth collecting. I want to see what the box looks like too, because I'm curious to see how it may differ from other releases. Unlike the Hyundai Comboy 64 and the Samsung Saturn, this PlayStation carries no indication of any "Korean" heritage, which is a bit disappointing to me. EDIT: Interestingly enough, this Nintendo Gamecube, which is pretty much the Japanese version from what I can tell, also appears to have been imported by Tomato Club. I can't tell if they mod anything, but they definitely didn't stop with importing only one console. However, by this point, the practice of using an alternative distributor was antiquated, so it still carries the Nintendo name. http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?...&from=search&redirect=Log&widgetTypeCall=true
That's just the Japanese Gamecube. The Korean Gamecube was officially distributed by Daiwon: https://m.blog.naver.com/PostView.n...33642718&proxyReferer=https://www.google.com/
The Korean Gamecube games come in the same size little boxes as the Japanese ones and they share a region. However, the artwork is all English market derived and every one of the official games is in English. There are about 6 more that were officially imported Japanese games with Korean wraps that come off entirely when you open the package. There are no Korean language NGC games and it is the last generation to share a region with Japan. Korea was also the only other market outside of Japan to get the orange spice model.
Orange spice as in the same color as the Gameboy Advance? I didn't know it even came in that color! What's the status of modern day Korean consoles? Have the traits that once distinguished them gradually become homogenized with the consoles released everywhere else in the world? PS4s have no region lock, so I guess nothing interesting happened past the 6th generation of consoles.
