NCsoft, Establishing a wholly owned subsidiary in Osaka, Japan

Friday 13 January 2006/... NCsoft Corp. (CEO Tack Jin Kim, www.ncsoft.com), today, announced the establishment of 'NCsoft Japan KK', as one hundred percent owned and operated subsidiary, valued at 100 million Yen (850 million Korean Won).

NCsoft Japan's operations will include development and localizations of their games serviced via PlayNC, NCsoft's games service platform. Servicing and marketing activities of all NCsoft's games will be executed under the operations of 'NC Japan KK', a joint venture with Softbank Japan.

The establishment of NCsoft Japan is interpreted as NCsoft's "Global Infrastructure, Local Content" strategy of developing best-of-breed local content that leverages the global infrastructure. Accordingly, NCsoft Japan will expand its horizons onto Japan and Asian markets and will be acting as NCsoft's Japanese development studio in the future which develops online casual games, MMO games for Japanese and Asian gamers.

Chris Chung, the Vice President of IBU (International Business Unit) at NCsoft commented on this event that, "By joining the industry acknowledged game experts of Japan with know-how's of global online game publisher, NCsoft, we expect greater synergy effects in near future".

NCsoft penetrated into Japanese market in 2001 by establishing a joint venture, and now is servicing both Lineage and Lineage II. Guild Wars is lined up for a commercialized service starting from January 27th. During the third quarter of 2005, NCsoft hit the record of 7.6 billion Korean Won in revenue with 3.7 billion in operating profit in Japan due to the consistent demands generated from Lineage and Lineage II. Japanese market contributes 20% of NCsoft's entire overseas sales.

NCsoft currently operates subsidiary offices in US and Europe, and joint ventures in Japan, China, Taiwan, and Thailand.