We shipped 4.77 million units of "Mario Kart 8" worldwide as of the end of the last calendar year. I can say it marked a very high attach rate if we consider the current installed base of Wii U hardware.

Following the Nintendo 3DS version, we released "Super Smash Bros. for Wii U," which had shipped 3.39 million units by the end of last year.
As these two classic multiplayer franchises for Nintendo consoles were brought out together,

As you can see, the year-on-year comparisons of software sell-through sales in the October-December period show increases in all regions. They especially improved in the U.S. market. We can see larger improvements if we make comparisons among Nintendo titles, especially in the overseas markets.
This is not directly related to this graph, but if we look at the sales figures of only Nintendo titles just in the U.S. for the full calendar year of 2014, the total figure of retail and digital sales represents 175 percent of those for the previous year.

On the other hand, hardware sales increased smoothly in overseas markets but decreased in the domestic market. Our analysis of this situation is that in addition to our offers not attracting consumers in the same way as the Premium Family Set bundles did in Japan in 2013, New Nintendo 3DS gained more attention than Wii U, many of the big titles were released for Nintendo 3DS to encourage younger consumers to choose multiple Nintendo 3DS titles, and the priority of purchasing the Wii U console decreased.

At the Corporate Management Policy Briefing in January a year ago, I explained that we were focusing on enriching the value of the Wii U GamePad, and at E3 in June Mr. Miyamoto showcased a couple of specific examples. In 2015, we will be releasing Wii U titles that fully utilize the GamePad.

This slide shows the Wii U titles that have already been announced for release in 2015. Even though there are more to announce, this slide contains many titles which fully utilize the GamePad.
In addition to Mr. Miyamoto’s GamePad Utilization Project, UGC (User-Generated Content), where players can enjoy other players’ creations, is possible in titles such as "Mario Maker" (temp.). Gameplay that utilizes the GamePad possesses a large amount of potential, and it can further expand the way parents and children have fun together.

As I have explained, there are hurdles we are yet to clear regarding the Wii U hardware sales expansion in Japan and Nintendo 3DS hardware sales in the U.S. and in Europe during the last year-end sales season.

On the positive side, we feel strongly that Nintendo games maintained a significant presence in the year-end sales season.
One notable thing is that big titles released during and after autumn both for Nintendo 3DS and for Wii U maintained healthy sales and produced significant results in the year-end. Another thing is that we have received high evaluations of the quality of these titles.

Foreign website Metacritic.com is well known for its Metascore system that shows the average score out of 100 from various game media and websites. In other words, the Metascore is an index that shows how professional reviewers evaluated these games. Metacritic.com also takes reviews from users and discloses the average figure as the User Score.
We must understand that even among game players, majority of consumers that visit Metacritic.com are considered avid game fans. However, if a game receives both a high Metascore and a high User Score, many consumers use this as a guide to judge the quality of the game.

Nintendo of America posted this picture on its official Facebook page at the end of last year.
It shows a list of packaged game titles that received a Metascore of 85 or more and a User Score of 8.5+ or more on Metacritic.com, which we can admit received high scores both from the professional reviewers and consumers.
For Nintendo’s current platforms, Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, 19 titles met these criteria. In contrast, the current platforms of other companies, PS4,Xbox One and PS Vita, totaled eight titles.
When a brand-new title is released, there are often misconceptions at the outset, so I would not take the Metacritic.com Metascores and User Scores as the absolute tell-all index, but I do want us to do our best to release such highly evaluated titles in succession.

In fact, software available on our platforms continues to be reviewed highly even after the turn of the year. The two software titles which were released simultaneously with the New Nintendo 3DS hardware in the U.S. and Europe, "The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D" and "Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate," received the very high Metascores of 90 and 86 and User Scores of 9.5 and 8.9, respectively. Compared to the Metascore of 79, which the prequel in the "Monster Hunter" series, "Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate," received, we can understand that this most recent iteration is very highly reviewed. As for "The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D," I am feeling extraordinary enthusiasm from consumers partially because there are a number of fans for this game’s prequel among the same generation of people I referred to in my presentation for the October 30, 2014 Corporate Management Policy Briefing, when I shared with you my "Same-Generation Hypothesis between the users of Super Smash Bros. and Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire."

This graph compares our preliminary sales data for "The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D" and "Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate" for the release week (three days for the U.S. and two days for Europe) to the counterparts of their previous works: "The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds" and "Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate." The sales of the "Monster Hunter" series in the U.S. are not available in the graph because we have not finished compiling the exact data on the titles, which are published by Capcom, and it was a holiday there yesterday. We have heard from Capcom, however, that the initial sales pace of "Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate," including the special-edition hardware with the title pre-installed, is more than three times as fast as "Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate" in quick estimation. They both had promising starts thanks to strong pre-orders and their highly-acclaimed gameplay.