Nintendo Targets Turkish Market

Representatives from Nintendo of Europe have announced the appointment of Nortec Multimedia S.A. as the company’s exclusive and official distributor for the Turkish market, beginning in December of this year. Nortec has been Nintendo’s official distributor for the territories of Greece and Cyprus since 1997, and Bulgaria, Albania and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia since 2002. Nintendo of Europe president Satoru Shibata commented: "Nintendo has a very exciting period ahead with the launch of the new handheld console Nintendo DS, so this is an ideal time to expand our presence beyond the European market. Nortec Multimedia S.A had already demonstrated its capability as our distributor in a number of other key territories, and we are looking forward to seeing them help us make the same impact on our business in Turkey." Still not a full member of the EEC, Turkey has one of the least positive records of enforcing intellectual properties in Europe. Given that the country has a relatively patchy of selling games hardware at retail, it is arguably surprising that Nintendo have chosen to launch their standard Game Boy Advance consoles, and not the Nintendo 64 variant, the iQue, which has built-in DRM. However, the decision to go with an official Nintendo hardware launch in Turkey suggests the company is reasonably confident that piracy will not be a major issue.