A service called, "Wii Ware." While you can already download classic titles with the Virtual Console system, you will be able to download and buy new and exclusive Wii titles with Wii Ware, that you cannot buy at retail stores.

Almost a quarter of century has gone by since the home video game market was born. In the beginning, anyone could initiate game development with small risk. But time has changed things, and now, even when you have an excellent game idea, often times you cannot materialize and commercialize the idea due to the gigantic risk you face. There is no question that the existing model of packaged software sales will be an important sales method for this industry in the future as well. However, it has certain limitations in terms of pricing flexibility. Because of this, game developers are forced to include enough game content to sell the software at a certain price point even when that additional content does not significantly add in terms of user satisfaction. Looking at this from the perspective of customers who are buying games, it is natural that they are looking for a certain amount of game content with packaged software Under this circumstance, today there are few chances that a game like Tetris, which is very simple and small-sized but attractive to so many people, could make its way into the market. We have been preparing to introduce Wii Ware in order to establish a new sales model which can supplement the existing packaged software business.

With our new challenge of Wii Ware, we aim to create the opportunity for any game maker, big or small, to realize their unique and great ideas in the form of a final video game product. At the same time, by offering flexible pricing according to the software content, we are trying to provide software at more reasonable prices for customers. Also, as it is not necessary to keep physical inventories, you will not lose sales opportunities due to a shortage of product in the market. The Virtual Console has already shown some results based upon this identical sales system, and our customers are gradually getting accustomed to purchasing Wii Point Prepaid Cards at Japanese retailers and to download Virtual Console software at home. I have a game developer background, and I believe that preparing for a new game development environment where great ideas count most means a lot in order to further expand the gaming population in the future. Just like Virtual Console software, when you download Wii Ware software, it will be stored in the internal memory of Wii and can be activated as an independent Wii Channel.

The 1st software I'll show you today is the "Poke´mon Ranch Channel". Customers who are playing with Poke´mon Diamond or Pearl will use wireless communication to move their Poke´mon on DS to this ranch in Wii, and you can also play using your own Miis among these Poke´mon. Even if you do not own Poke´mon Diamond or Pearl, you can still enjoy the interaction between your Miis and Poke´mon. Why don't you take pictures of the ranch and show off to your friends by sending the pictures to them?

Also, we are expecting the launches of "Kotobano Mojipittann Wii" from Bandai Namco, and "Star Soldier R" from Hudson. Nintendo is also planning to launch brand new puzzle games called "Maruboshikaku", "Minnade Puzzloop" and "Dr. Mario's Virus Buster" . Because the Virus Buster has already been incorporated into More Brain Training for DS, in a sense, it is already the most popular puzzle game for the Japanese senior citizens. We are hopeful that the games like this can be an initiative for these people to start playing with Wii. Including those from overseas companies, we have more than 100 proposals to make Wii Ware titles. Quite a few of them are coming from companies who have not made software for home game consoles before, and also from those who have developed games before but have always needed to use outside publishers. We are hopeful that Wii Ware will create business opportunities for many different people.