More specifically, I recognize that some of you are wondering, “Will Wii and Nintendo DS, which have less momentum than a year ago, be able to sell at the end of the year just as the company expects?”
Of course, no one can forecast the future with 100% precision.  But when we revised our financial forecasts, we tried our best to conclude the most appropriate predictions by basing them upon many factors including the lessons we were able to learn from the 2009 year-end sales.  It is true that the situation surrounding us today does not allow us to be optimistic.

But because the year-end sales of our industry are now anticipated to be affected by even stronger seasonality than last year, we do not think it makes great sense to forecast our sales solely based upon the current sales trend.  This prospect of ours is shared by many.  In fact, when we meet with major retailers around the world to negotiate our deals, they show the same opinion as ours.  Taking last year as an example, during summer to fall, Wii was said to have already lost momentum.  At that time, looking at the situation surrounding Wii, even though we did mark down the price, no one was able to forecast that Wii would end up breaking the monthly sales record by selling 3.81 million units in the U.S. in December 2009 alone.  The fact is, such unexpected things can happen when the seasonality throws its weight around.

From the sales volume Wii and Nintendo DS have already made, we must understand that among the people who are willing to buy Wii and Nintendo DS, a great number of people have already purchased them.  From now on, it becomes more important for the company to make efforts so that we can encourage people who have an interest in purchasing our products but need some reason or trigger to make the actual purchase decision.  From that perspective as well, the upcoming year-end sales season is the biggest opportunity of the year.  Through the experiences from the last few years, the consumers have learned that retailers make very attractive offers just in time for the holiday season and, accordingly, consumers have become very patient.  We understand this trend to wait and save money may become even stronger this year in such a difficult economic time.

Even when we may be able to anticipate the exciting year-end sales, some may still argue that the company does not have a software lineup which can be compared with the strong titles from last year’s holiday season.

One unique characteristic that I want to note here on Nintendo platforms is the availability of the titles with long tails.
If only the newly-launched titles could sell on our platforms, especially on Wii, it could be said that we have a comparatively weaker software lineup than around this time a year ago.  However, we can see the sales potential in the software titles that were launched last year or before then.  I’d like you to see this graph.

What we are looking at now is the graph for the top 20 software titles sold for all platforms in this generation in the U.S..  The blue bars are titles for Nintendo platforms, the green ones represent Microsoft and the gray ones are for Sony.  Four titles from “Call of Duty” as well as “Grand Theft Auto” and “Halo” are the titles for other companies’ platforms, and all the other entrants are games for Nintendo platforms. 
As was the case with previous charts for this year, the point I’d like to invite your attention to here is the inclusion to this chart of many software titles for Nintendo platforms that have been selling for a long period of time after their respective launches, even after several years.

We have broken down the previous graph with different colors by how many units of each software title were sold within three months, 12 months and beyond the 12th month on the market.  The three-month results can be largely affected if the software is launched in the year-end sales season or not, so it may not be a good indicator if the software belongs to the type of software which makes almost all of its lifetime sales in the launch period or if it is the long-tail type, but when we see the extended sales beyond the 12th month, you can see the unique presence of software for Nintendo platforms which have been selling even for years after their launches, just as I explained with the top software charts today.  Such titles that we launched last year as "Wii Sports Resort," "Wii Fit Plus" and "New Super Mario Bros. Wii" are comparatively new on the market, so their sales beyond the 12th month are not outstanding yet, but we expect them to sell continuously on the market, just like other Nintendo titles did.  We are also expecting the titles we launched this year, such as "Super Mario Galaxy 2" and "Wii Party," to follow the same trend.
You may wonder why, only on Nintendo platforms, so many software titles are able to sell for extended periods of time after their launches.  My understanding is that it is because a number of new gaming populations are entering into the world of Nintendo platforms due largely to our gaming population expansion goal.  The software titles which were launched a few years ago can be generally considered old games for the avid game players, but for the new entrants they are as new as when they were originally launched.  Many software titles for Nintendo platforms have been created in order to offer something to anyone regardless of their gender, age and past game play experiences.  This must be the reason that many consumers choose to purchase these games.

Super Mario Bros. is arguably the representative software in this category.  In the final quarter of this calendar year, Nintendo has been deploying the Super Mario Bros. 25th Anniversary Campaign.

In Japan we launched this "Super Mario All-Stars – 25th Anniversary Edition" last week. 
With the first-week sales of about 310,000 units in the Japanese market, it went off to a good start.  We will launch this software in the other parts of the world this year.

And, only yesterday we launched this Super Mario 25th anniversary edition of  Nintendo DSi XL in Japan.
We launched the same model in Europe on October 22, and the U.S. launch is scheduled for November 7.

And, next month we will launch the Super Mario 25th anniversary edition of Wii hardware in red.
With the red Wii, we have included Wii Remote Plus, which integrates the function of Wii MotionPlus.
The Japanese launch is November 11, and the U.S., November 7.  The European launch is today, October 29.

We have just made this announcement today, but we will add another function to Wii-no-Ma, which is one of the Wii Channels in Japan, to enjoy videos that owners of Wii with a broadband Internet connection can use free of charge.  On November 1, we will add a shopping service called “Wii-no-Ma Shopping.”

In addition to the unique goods only available at Wii-no-Ma, consumers can feel as if they are going into a shopping mall to select and purchase products offered by different retailers.  Wii no Ma Co., Ltd., which is a subsidiary of Nintendo, and SENSHUKAI CO.,LTD will jointly operate this service.  At the start, three retailers, namely SENSHUKAI CO.,LTD, Senshukai IIHANA CO., LTD and Shachihata Inc. are going to make their products available for the shopping channel.  And other companies, including Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd., are planning to join.

Leveraging upon the know-how and expertise of a department store, and major mail and online-order merchants, which represent their respective industries in Japan, we’d like to construct a new style of shopping in living rooms together with consumers.