This is the regional breakdown of DS hardware and software sales as of the end of September this year. As you can see, sales shares have become significantly different. Among the three territories, Japan which has the smallest population has become the largest market for DS, and the Americas is the smallest. This is unprecedented in the history of our company. As you know, however, this is due to the fact that the game population expansion started first in Japan, and the installed base of DS quickly expanded in this country.

However, when we only focus on the semi-annual fiscal year, the sales rate in Japan, where DS sales first exploded, slowed somewhat, and the sales in Europe accelerated. Europe has become the biggest market for DS.

What’s been happening on the global market is this: our efforts to expand the gaming population first bore fruit in Japan, then in Europe, and the Americas are now catching up. During the first 6 months of the fiscal year, sales in the Americas were exceeding those in Japan, so the total picture is gradually changing. In terms of the sheer population and traditional market potential, the Americas have great room for increased sales.

When we look at the sales of Wii, the Americas have already shown the same strong preference that they always have for home consoles.

When we focus on sales just in the first half of this fiscal year, Europe is increasing its presence, not to mention the Americas. Behind this is the fact that Wii sales especially in the United Kingdom, which is the biggest market in Europe, have been significantly increasing since this spring.

In Japan, Wii used to sell out every week as soon as it has reached retailers. The situation has softened since this summer, and you can now go and purchase Wii at Japanese retailers. We are receiving reports, however, that in the United States and in the United Kingdom, Wii hardware has still been selling through as soon as it is made available at retail.

Here, using NPD data, we are comparing U.S. portable video game hardware sales during the January-September periods in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

The portable market as a whole has significantly expanded. Notably, the 66% increase of DS, the pink portion, is the largest.

We have gathered data provided by independent research companies in the UK, France, Germany and Spain and made this comparison of portable video game hardware sales during January-September periods from 2005 to 2007. These four countries represent 75% to 80% of the total European market. So, by referring to the data in these four countries, I would like to discuss the situation in Europe today.

Over the past two years, the unit sales of portable game hardware in Europe has almost doubled and, among these sales, the share for DS has become remarkable. In 2005, European unit sales were less than half of the U.S. However, the picture is changing significantly, and given the fact that these graphs represent about 80% of the whole European market, the actual unit sales in Europe must be approaching those for the U.S.

Once again using NPD data, we are now comparing the transition in portable software sales. In the portable market, the increase in software sales is even more apparent than that of hardware. And, once again, DS software is increasing its presence year after year.

You can better understand what I’m talking about when the graphs are based upon share percentages, like this.

The sales increase for portable software in Europe is nothing but explosive. The sheer software market has more than tripled in two years. And when you look at the DS alone, software sales have expanded more than 10 times.