The nine-month home console software unit sales did not show an increase this year in the U.S., and the market share for Wii software was 34%, which is the same as two years ago.  Xbox 360, for which hit titles have been launched constantly this year, increased its software market share to equal Nintendo’s share at 34%.  When we look at the unit sales, Xbox 360 software slightly outnumbered those of Wii for the first nine months of this year.

In order to evaluate Wii’s momentum, we have compared Wii’s sales transition in the U.S. with that of PS2, which so far has been the best selling home video game console in the country.  In the bar graph on the left, you’ll see the total sales from the launch through the fourth holiday selling period.  The bar graph on the right-hand side compares Wii’s January to September sales for this year with the corresponding first nine months of the relative fifth year for PS2.  On the bottom, you’ll see the numbers from both of the bar graphs combined and represented in line-graph form.  I hope each and all these charts will convince you that Wii, as a machine set to welcome its fifth holiday sales season, can never be considered to have lost momentum.
As you can see in the upper-left graph, Wii’s cumulative units-sold lead over PS2 until its fourth year in the U.S. market was 23%.  For Wii to maintain or extend this 23% lead in its fifth year, Nintendo will need to sell 5.7 million units of Wii hardware in the U.S., but it looks like that there won’t be so much trouble for the company to outnumber this.

This shows a year-on-year nine-month comparison of monthly sales figures of Nintendo DS and PSP.  Nintendo DS showed an increase in February and March this year, but has shown a significant decrease since April.  When we take the seasonal nature of video games into consideration, the sales of Nintendo DS before the sales season have not been very bad so far this year.  On the other hand, it appears to be true that the Nintendo DS hardware, which had been constantly expanding the market for years, has slowed down its sales pace.

This chart shows the sales transition of handheld hardware in the U.S. market from January to September in the most recent three years.
While this year’s Nintendo DS hardware unit sales fell in the first nine months in comparison to the same period last year, Nintendo DS increased its market share from 81% to 83%.

As for the handheld software sales transitions in the U.S., the unit sales declined in comparison to last year.

However, when we look at the transitions of the market share, Nintendo DS has increased its software market share.

Of course, we cannot afford to feel happy about this increased market share at all now that the total unit sales have declined.  Now that Nintendo DS hardware has reached such a high level of its installed base, it has become even more important for us to materialize the remaining sales potential.

As the software market for both home consoles and handheld devices showed declined sales, the overall software sales in the U.S. showed year-on-year declines in the first nine months for two years in a row.

When we see each of the three platform holders’ unit sales shares in the entire software market in the U.S., a slight decrease was found in Nintendo’s market share in the first nine months of this year against the same period a year ago.  However, when we compare this year with 2008, although the entire U.S. market was showing healthier transition and more Wii and Nintendo DS software were selling two years ago, this year shows a small increase in the share of software for Nintendo platforms, which might be a bit of a surprise to you.

Next, let’s look at Europe.

This is the sales of home consoles in the European market.  Nintendo gathered the data from independent market research companies in European countries to compile these charts and graphs.
As for Wii this year, it kept a similar sales pace as last year’s until summer, but the most recent sales are not very pleasing ones.  Xbox 360 has increased its sales after the model change, particularly in the U.K.  So far in 2010, PS3 has outperformed its 2009 sales and, quite recently, it has been leading the European market.