Korean company to produce the next Mario?

Furthering my belief that Korean companies desperately need some better Korean to English translators, South Korean company Nexon has released a confusing statement today, saying they want to promote two of their characters to world-wide stardom & follow in Nintendo's footsteps.

Young stars 'Bazzi' and 'Dao' are as popular as 'Super Mario' in Asia owing to the success of 'BnB' and 'Kart-Rider.' 'BnB,' the first game starring those characters, set a new record in 2001, one year after its launch, with 350 thousand users playing the game at the same time, and also set the best record in China in 2004 with 700 thousand players playing at the same time. The second game 'Kart-Rider' outperformed 'Starcraft' 6 months after its launch, and became a 'national game' with No.1 share in PC cafe. Those two games have been playing world-wide, mostly in Asian countries like China, Taiwan, and Thailand, and loved by world gamers recording the world cumulative user numbers of 150 million and 120 million users last year.

A friend of mine more familiar with Starcraft than I uttered disbelief at that statement, likening Starcraft to Korea's national past time. So Nexon must be doing something right (or inflating their numbers, or something).

Personally, I think the characters bring to mind the Bomberman franchise. They're cute, round, and I'm not sure how well they'll fly 'worldwide.' And to the Nexon CEO's statement that "regardless of Korea's leading position in online game industry, we haven't produced big online game characters," I'd offer up that some comprehensible English language press might help matters, too. Cute and bubbly characters can only get you so far.

Nexon, Promoting its Characters to be the World's Star [ET News]