Thank you for attending our Corporate Management Policy Briefing despite your busy schedules. I am Tatsumi Kimishima, president of Nintendo.
As Mr. Furukawa, General Manager of the Corporate Planning Department, has just explained in the financial figures, our operating income for the first half of the fiscal year moved back into the black for the first time in five fiscal years.
For the second half, we will continue to make steady progress on what we should do for an earnings recovery, balancing revenue with expenses.

Today, I would like to talk about the sales situation in the first half of the fiscal year, and also about the prospects for the upcoming year-end sales season.

Let me begin with Nintendo 3DS.

This graph shows the comparison between the Nintendo 3DS hardware sell-through numbers from last year and this year in the Japanese market.
Four and a half years from its launch, the sales of Nintendo 3DS hardware have slightly decreased compared to the prior year during which titles such as Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and YOKAI WATCH2 GANSO/HONKE (Japanese titles) were released.

This graph shows the comparison between the Nintendo 3DS software sell-through numbers from last year and this year in the Japanese market.
So far, the momentum has not reached that of the last year, in which the Nintendo 3DS software market was greatly invigorated by the release of five double-million titles within the six months from summer until the end of the year. However, we have a promising situation with already released million hit titles such as YO-KAI WATCH Busters Akanekodan/Shiroinutai (Japanese titles) and Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, and more Nintendo titles and anticipated titles from other software publishers planned for release.

We mentioned in the Financial Results Briefing at the end of the prior fiscal year that the key to bringing more momentum to Nintendo 3DS in the Japanese market was to appeal to a wider range of female generations.
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, released in Japan on July 30, has already reached over one million units in sales and is showing a steady transition.
This title can be played with “card-shaped amiibo,” a new form of amiibo, which has also reached sales of more than one million packs in Japan after its release, and we believe this played a good role in conveying the fun of using amiibo to play a game.
In addition, approximately 70 percent of the consumers playing this game in Japan are female, and in terms of our goal for the Japanese market to increase the number of female consumers, as I just mentioned, we feel we have obtained a definite positive result.
In the upcoming year-end sales season, we will launch a special set of light and compact New Nintendo 3DS with cover plates of “Hello Kitty,” “Animal Crossing” and “Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary.” By mainly focusing on female consumers with these items, we would like to continue to give momentum to the Nintendo 3DS market.
Incidentally, Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer was released on September 25 in the United States and on October 2 in Europe, and its sales are making steady growth overseas as well.

This graph shows the comparison between the Nintendo 3DS hardware sell-through numbers from last year and this year in the US and European markets.
In the overseas markets, which have been affected by the release of New Nintendo 3DS in February this year, the numbers are growing at a pace higher than that of last year.

This graph shows the comparison between the Nintendo 3DS Nintendo-published software sell-through numbers from last year and this year in the US and European markets. It shows sales transitions slightly lower than last year’s in both the US and Europe. With the release of Super Smash Bros. in October last year, the gap between the sell-through numbers from this year and last year seems to deepen starting in October, but we plan to invigorate Nintendo 3DS software sales with the release of titles like YO-KAI WATCH, which has been announced to be released for the holiday season in the US and Australia.

This graph shows a comparison of the number of units sold in Japan, US and Europe, for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, which were released last year. The number of units sold in the US and Europe exceed those of Japan for both titles.
As we have mentioned in the past, especially in the overseas markets, not only does hardware sell well together with new titles, but it also tends to sell well with major evergreen titles. Therefore, we are aiming to popularize the hardware by keeping the rich lineup of evergreen titles already released highly active.
In the US, we are planning a Nintendo 3DS holiday campaign for the year-end holiday sales season for the purpose of promoting popular evergreen titles. Also, in Europe, we are seeing a good start in the sell-through numbers due to continuous sales of titles such as Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Tomodachi Life and the release of a lineup of discounted software called “Nintendo Selects.” With these, we would like to further increase sales mainly intensifying our sales to younger consumers towards the end of the year when sales peak.

This slide shows the Nintendo 3DS titles that have either been released in each region in October 2015 or have already been announced and are awaiting release.
As you can see, a number of titles are to be released soon, and more unannounced titles that are not on this slide are currently under development. In the Japanese market, the motivation of software developers to create Nintendo 3DS software has remained high, and we will continue to assist Japanese software developers in bringing hit titles to overseas markets.