In Europe, DS software represents about two-thirds of total portable software sales.

Here, we are looking at the three-year transition in home console hardware sales in the U.S. By the end of 2006, all three new hardware platforms had been launched, and this year we see a great increase in home console sales. What is different from other markets is that PS2 is still maintaining sales, and also the market position for Microsoft. Despite such circumstances, Wii has become the best -selling hardware.

Let’s look at home console hardware sales in Europe. I could have altered the scale of the graph so you could more easily see the situation in Europe, but I wanted to keep the same scale with the graphs for the U.S. in order to compare the markets.
Looking at the graph, you can still see the difference in the scale of the two markets. However, in Europe too, hardware sales have significantly increased. Wii has become the best-selling hardware in Europe as well. And while the sales volume for Wii is bigger in the U.S., the Wii’s presence appears to be even stronger in Europe than in the U.S.

These graphs show the sales transition for software. While home console hardware sales significantly increased this year, the software market shows just a minimum sales increase, as software for the new home consoles is barely filling the dip in PS2 software sales.

A situation where the software market is not expanding yet can also be applied to Europe. The sheer size of the home console software market in Europe is about half the size of the U.S., which is quite different from the portable software market. The size of the European portable software market can now be compared with the corresponding market in the U.S.

Of course, the expansion of software sales always takes place after hardware expansion, so there are great opportunities for us to further expand the home console software markets.

To wrap up these points, portable hardware and software sales have been expanding in both the U.S. and Europe, and DS hardware and software have been increasing its strong presence there.

At the same time, the expansion of the overall software market was mainly attributable to portable software sales, and we have yet to see notable growth in the home console software market.

As for Europe, the share of portable software sales is becoming very large in relation to total software sales. As you can see in these graphs, it is almost equal to that of home console software.
What’s happening in Europe reminds us of how the gaming population expansion has taken place in Japan. In other words, the portable game market starts to expand first, and then the total software market. The overall market, which was traditionally driven by home console software, starts to be led by portable software sales. And then, a new type of home console hardware platform like Wii arrives, beginning to expand the market. It seems that Europe is expanding according to such a scenario. On the other hand, in the United States, while the growth of the DS market is further expanding the total portable video game market, the home console business is still the main driver there, as Wii is becoming the main player, even exceeding DS.

Nintendogs, which has played an important role in expanding the DS market in Europe and in the U.S. since 2005, has not shown notable sales growth in Japan recently, but is still maintaining significant sales outside Japan. Cumulative life-to-date unit sales have now reached 15.77million.

These bars compare unit sales rates for Nintendogs in the U.S. and in Europe. European sales have already reached 7 million but still show no sign of a slow down.