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December 8, 2008 10:19 PM

Buying an X-Box 360 or Wii in Korea -- language issues?

I'm living in Korea and I miss me some video games. I'm thinking about purchasing an X-Box 360 or a Wii (easy to find here) but I was wondering how easy or difficult it would be (or possible, for that matter) to set up either console to display English. For example, with my Korean cell phone I was pretty much able to "switch" the whole thing into English in under 60 seconds.

FWIW, I can read Korean, albeit very slowly and only with a dictionary as of now.

I'm not as worried about getting English versions of games, but I would be bummed if I had trouble accessing all of the cool network content each console has to offer.

Anybody able to help a wayguk-saram out?

posted by bardic to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (1 answer total)

Best answer: It seems that it's really easy on the X-Box, but impossible on the Wii, as the Korean Wii has a separate region code setting. See this. If you really want, you can change the region on the Korean Wii by modding it with a modchip. This goes for the Japanese Wii as well.

As for the Korean Xbox, apparently it's really easy.

I'd say you should either get the NTSC/North American versions of each console, or get a modchip installed for the Wii. Both should probably be relatively easy if you wander around Yongsan, I'd bet. Here's a forum post from somebody in Korea saying that they got a Wii with a modchip for 30,0000 won total.

Thanks for helping me procrastinate!
posted by suedehead at 12:15 AM on December 9, 2008