2K Sports, Nexon Target Korea With Online Baseball Sim

2K Sports has partnered with Nexon Corporation to develop and publish an online baseball simulation for the South Korean market, the companies announced Monday. The game will be distributed by Nexon (MapleStory) and developed by 2K Sports' Visual Concepts studio. Visual Concepts is no stranger to baseball games, having developed the last seven iterations of 2K Sports' Major League Baseball 2K series and, before its acquisition, the World Series Baseball series for Sega. "We view this as a great opportunity to deliver an outstanding simulation game to a population that enjoys online gaming and has a passion for baseball," said 2K president Christoph Hartmann. "We look forward to reaching new audiences with our authentic simulation titles." "We're confident that Visual Concepts' proven success in developing sports simulations coupled with our online gaming expertise will result in a new kind of baseball experience for Korean online gamers," added Nexon Corporation CEO Min Suh. Baseball is an extremely popular spectator sport in South Korea, attracting 5.92 million in-person spectators for all games in the 2010 season, according to a report from The Korean Times. The South Korea national baseball team won the gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, and the nation is a regular participant in the World Baseball Classic series of international matches. It is unknown if the simulation will license either the teams or the players from Korea Professional Baseball, the nation's equivalent of the United States' Major League. 2K Sports was unavailable for clarification at press time, but promised additional information would be provided to Gamasutra on Tuesday. We will update this story at that time.