Thank you for attending our Financial Results Briefing despite your busy schedules. I’m Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo.

As Yoshihiro Mori has already briefed you on the financial results, I would like to begin by talking about the global video game market in 2012 as well as Nintendo’s future prospects.

First, I would like to talk briefly about the environment surrounding the current global video game market.
The overseas markets are different from the Japanese market, where the Nintendo 3DS has been enjoying steady sales following the explosive sales growth that we saw in year-end sales season of last year. Therefore, I will explain in detail how Nintendo is doing in each region one by one.

First, I would like to talk about the Japanese market.

This graph illustrates how hardware sales have been progressing since the beginning of this year.
In the previous year-end sales season, the Japanese game market witnessed explosive sales of the Nintendo 3DS, and this momentum has been maintained. Sales are traditionally low around this time of year, and it is not immediately after the launch of a new system either, so we believe this is a sign that the Nintendo 3DS has a strong presence in the market. On the other hand, since this year started, we have seen the Wii sales quickly losing momentum. In the home console market this year, Sony’s PlayStation 3 remains in good shape.

This chart shows the top 20 titles for the first 16 weeks of 2012 in the Japanese video game market.
Only one title for the Nintendo 3DS was ranked during the same period last year. However, things have drastically changed in one year and now you can see from the chart that the Nintendo 3DS is playing the lead in software sales as well as hardware sales.

Next, let me talk about the U.S. market.

This graph compares the sales of various game systems on a monthly basis by looking at weekly figures. As I have repeatedly stated, NPD, which is an independent market research company, only publishes sales data once every month. This implies that some months are treated as having four weeks, and some as having five weeks. To see the real sales transitions, we look at weekly averages.
In contrast to Japan, the United States has a home console market that has traditionally been strong. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has been keeping the momentum it created at the end of last year. At some retailers the Wii did better than it did last year, but we have not managed to maintain enough momentum for the Wii since the beginning of this year.
The Nintendo 3DS, which now has an overwhelming presence in Japan, also has the largest share in the U.S. handheld game market. However, considering that the U.S. market is two or three times the size of its Japanese equivalent, I believe that the sales of the Nintendo 3DS in the U.S. are far below the level that it could potentially reach. Also, unlike Japan, the United States still has a relatively large market for the Nintendo DS.

This chart gives the top 20 titles for the first three months of 2012 in the U.S. game market. Included are only six Nintendo titles, a record low for us in many years, and there are eight titles for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and six for Sony. (Some Kinect titles also fared well in the chart towards the end of last year, but it seems that this momentum did not continue, so Kinect is probably not responsible for the Xbox 360’s current sales growth.)
Similar to last year, two dance games are high up in the Wii chart. “Mario Party 9,” released in March, also ranked high. We just released this game in Japan yesterday. As it has sold well in the initial stage both in the U.S. and Europe, we hope to sell it at a steady pace for a long time.

As for the Nintendo 3DS titles this year, both “Mario Kart 7” and “SUPER MARIO 3D LAND” continue to sell well. We are hoping to maintain a steady sales pace for these two titles. If successful, they might be able to sell over an extended period of time, like “New Super Mario Bros.” for Nintendo DS which was released in 2006 and still appears in 19th place.

Lastly, I will talk about the European market.

This graph illustrates the sales transitions of hardware systems in Europe. Based on sales information by market research companies in each European country, Nintendo estimated the sales of each hardware system for the entire European market.
Sony’s PlayStation 3 has taken the lead in the video game market in Europe since the beginning of this year. It means that each of Japan, the U.S. and Europe has different hardware with the largest share this year. Although the Nintendo 3DS has recently increased its weekly sales, it is far from a satisfactory level.

It is hard to understand the presence of Nintendo in the software market just by looking at the hardware sales. As Europe is a group of many countries and each of them is unique, I will show you this year’s charts from four of the main countries.