The expansion of the gaming population has been continuing into this year as well. Utilizing data from MediaCreate, we are here comparing January to September sales in 2006 and 2007. In total, the Japanese video game market size has once again expanded by about 25% this year. The sales of home console hardware increased about 5 times over last year due to the launches of such new hardware as Wii and PS3, which have contributed to this significant market growth. On the other hand, the installed bases for newly introduced hardware were still relatively small and thus the relevant software sales have not yet been able to compensate for the decrease in PS2 software sales. As for the portable market, both hardware and software sales are still increasing over last year.

As for total sales of hardware and software for Nintendo platforms, we see a 49% increase so far in 2007 over the same period last year. As a result, the total market share for Nintendo hardware and software products has increased from 54% in the previous year to 64% this year.

When we focus upon the software market, although the retail price of portable software is less expensive than that for home consoles, DS software sales have once again increased the total market share, here representing nearly half of the total software market. Also, the home console game market share has started to change significantly since Wii was launched.

This is the software hit chart so far this year. DS software, colored in pink, appealing to a large hardware installed base, occupies many spots, but three of the blue colored Wii titles can be found in the top 10, and five in the top 30. DS has become a popular platform, but it is true that some were complaining that the most hit titles represented those made by Nintendo.

This graph compares the share of Nintendo software, compared to total DS software sales in 2006 and 2007. Last year was the year when we saw a sea change in the Japanese video game market, and since Nintendo had been investing in DS software development much more than anyone else, more than three quarters of the DS software sales were for Pok_mon software and other Nintendo titles. That led many people to complain about Nintendo's dominance in the DS software market. However, the situation has greatly changed this year, which must be triggered by the fact that each software maker is now making significant investments to develop DS titles after seeing the dramatic change in the market place in 2006. As you have seen at the beginning of this presentation, a number of software publishers are now developing an unprecedented number of titles for Nintendo's platforms.