There’s a grinch at Starbucks

It’s not yet December but at Starbucks the Christmas season hits anybody who walks through their door like a fake snow storm . All around there are customers nursing bright red paper cups of Peppermint Mocha topped with whipped cream and sprinkled with red jimmies. You can watch cars whiz by from your third-story window seat and imagine that at any moment one of them might become Santa’s sleigh.

The background music is also tuned to a jingle-merry theme that’s sweeter than a caramel latte. Some tracks are light and springy, others have a softer, jazzier groove providing the perfect lounge music for a caffeinated Christmas party. However, there is one thing that spoils the seasonal feeling. Anxious customers can scour the first floor collection of Starbucks’ paraphernalia as hard as they like but it will not possible for them to find the famed Starbucks Music CD.
The good news is that the CDs have not sold out in some parts of the world. The bad news is that they have never been available ― at least not in Korea.

In the United States, Starbucks sells CDs and DVDs in its stores , made by its affiliate Hear Music, but these are not available in Korea. Just as in the United States, many people in Korea have asked for compilation CDs of the music that they hear at Starbucks, but laws in Korea ban food and beverage enterprises from selling items not related to their specific food type. This includes CDs, even though the Christmas season is upon us. “We need another business permit to sell CDs, which we have not obtained,” said Mick Lee, a Starbucks spokesman.

Meanwhile, those CDs played at Starbucks are technologically protected so that they cannot be copied onto pirate CDs. Each CD contains about 100 songs and can only be played on the Starbucks music player. The CDs also have an expiration date of 10 months to one year, due to copyright agreements with the musicians featured. After that period, the CD will no longer function. It’s as if the government has sent the Grinch Who Stole Christmas into Starbucks.
Starbucks music players are also “protective” of music in that regular music CDs will not play on them. “In a sense we control the music. We receive about two new CDs every month from headquarters, which ships the CDs out to all the Starbucks coffeehouses around the world,” Mr. Lee said.
“I usually carry around my iPod Nano, but when I’m at Starbucks, I take off my earphones because I enjoy the music,” said Kim Tae-bin, a food stylist. “Sometimes I ask the worker what song is playing because most of the songs aren’t those you hear on Korean radio.”
Just don’t try buying any of that music for Christmas. by Wohn Dong-hee for JoongAng Daily

Mario, Luigi, Zelda study their Korean

KYOTO― Nintendo will move aggressively into the Korean game market in 2007, releasing its first-ever Korean-language game console next month. At a press conference for Korean reporters at the company’s headquarters on Thursday, Nintendo President Iwata Satoru said that the company is planning a Korean language version of its portable console the DS Lite on Jan. 18 and continuing localization of future products.

▶ Nintendo President Iwata Satoru

The DS Lite is a slim, lightweight dual-screen handheld game console with a touch screen, an upgraded version of the popular original Nintendo DS, which sold 6 million units in 14 months after its release.
Until now, limited Nintendo products were sold through an agent in Korea and were only available in Japanese. Nintendo invested 25 billion won ($26.9 million) and established a local office in July, but sales of Nintendo products only take up a fraction of the game market.
Industry analysts point out that a Korean-language DS Lite will not have an immediate impact on the local market, especially because Nintendo’s educational games, which drove DS sales in Japan, are already being played on mobile phones and portable media players.
Mr. Iwata said that he feels Nintendo will do well in Korea as it did in the U.S. and Europe, but that he feels like he is “selling women’s cosmetics to men,” because online games dominate the local market.
Instead of competing with online games, Nintendo wants to create a new entertainment culture, he said.

▶ said his company will release a Korean-language DS Lite (right) Jan. 18. Provided by the company

Nintendo’s Wii console, which is available in Japan and the U.S., is not yet available in Korea. Mr. Iwata said that the Korean-language version of the Wii will be available late next year. “We will begin sales after localization is complete,” he said. “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 just begun developing games with the Korean game company Nexon.
Regarding Nintendo’s relationship with Sony and Microsoft, Mr. Iwata said that he did not feel in competition with them, because each has different goals. “Nintendo’s rivals are not other companies, but the indifference of the customers,” he said.
Sony, maker of the PlayStation console series, just released its PlayStation 3. Microsoft’s Xbox360 was released in the U.S. last year and in Korea early this year.

by Shim Jae-woo,Wohn Dong-hee for JoongAng Daily

Developers to fore at games awards

The 2006 Korea Game Awards was one of those rare occasions when the “backstage forces” of the game industry got the spotlight ― where game developers washed their hair and crawled out of their cubbies to stand on stage alongside celebrity commentators.
Hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the game awards ceremony took place on Monday evening with performances by Korean pop singers including Brown Eyed Girls and Kim Hyun-jeong.
Granado Espada, a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (Mmorpg) developed by IMC Games, was selected as the “overall best game of the year,” winning the President’s Award.
The game beat 41 other candidates competing in five different categories ― online, PC and video, mobile, technical, and commercial. Granado Espada also received an award for technical creativity in the visual graphics sector.
The online game Zera, which took Nexon three years to develop, received the Prime Minister’s Award. In the online game division, the first-person shooting game Sudden Attack received the top award, as well as an award for the “most popular” game. Sudden Attack did not receive good marks among the judges, but received extremely favorable votes from reporters and game players, who were able to participate through mobile votes ― both groups’ opinions accounted for 30 percent of the final decision.
The judges, however, pointed out in their comments that they were a bit disappointed in the games this year, saying that developers “made a lot of creative efforts but made no notable progress.”
They noted that they selected Granado Espada because its style was very different from other massive multiplayer online role-playing games, the publishers rushed to begin service for the game, which resulted in operational problems.
“That was why the game was unable to garner a lot of players,” the judges said.
The judges also praised the fact that many games had excellent soundtracks, but expressed regret that those soundtracks were not created by Koreans. “Increasing the budget for soundtracks and the usage of full orchestras in games such as SUN, Granado Espada, and R2 helped enhance the game experience and raise the quality of the game, but most of the music was composed and created by foreigners,” the judges said.
In particular, SUN was acknowledged for its special effects sounds ― especially each of the different sounds that the weapons made.
The awards ceremony was not just for games. Lee Yun-yeol, a professional game player for Pantech’s EX team, also received an award as the best gamer of the year.

by Wohn Dong-hee for JoongAng Daily

Onflight games handy, but difficult to control

Electronic gaming has become so much a part of mass culture that it is ubiquitous ― seemingly everywhere at the same time. (For readers who are unfamiliar with the term, now is as good a time as ever to plug it into your mental dictionary because it’s not a highly technical word anymore.) In fact, gaming has become ubiquitous to the point that a reporter cannot escape from writing her weekly digital cuts corner even while on a foreign business trip, because games turn up on every (or almost every) corner.
Onboard Korean Air bound for the United States, each seat was a pseudo private gaming kiosk. The gaming experience, which used to be available only for those riding business or first class, is now for everyone. Economy seats also have individual screens and a menu full of games ― from Blackjack and brick-breaking to mini golf.
The remote control looks like a normal remote control, and controls the volume and audio/video channels, but also serves dually as a game pad. At the end of the remote control are the directional buttons, and another set of four buttons, each colored differently ― very much like a commercial game pad. Depending on the game, the remote control also has to be held in the same manner as a game pad, which is horizontally.
The non-action options such as card games were easy to play, but the arcade games, such as brick-breaking or golf, proved to be difficult. The games themselves were extremely easy, but the game pad was very sensitive and difficult to use for fine controlling. This turned out to be a bit of problem in the brick-breaking game, because even a slight nudge would send the paddle hurtling to the other end of the screen instead of edging it over to make sure the ball hits the paddle instead of falling into the void.
The presence of Atari’s brick-breaking game evoked mixed feelings, having recently inherited 30 Atari shares that my game-loving father bought several years ago for $470. The current market price for those 30 shares is about $18, which shows how console games have almost wiped out arcade and PC games.
At any rate, for flights that are more than 10 hours, these games are bound to keep you less bored for at least a short while, and if you really get into the game, they can even get your metabolism going. Even if you don’t become absorbed in them, your fingers will at least be getting some exercise.by Wohn Dong-hee for JoongAng Daily