This graph shows the sales transition of home console hardware in the U.S. in the last 4 years. All three current generation hardware were launched by the end of 2006, and the home console hardware unit sales were significantly up last year and this year. In total, the home console hardware market grew 23% this year over the same period last year. Wii contributed significantly to the market growth by marking a 50% sales increase so far this year.

This is the European situation. To make the comparison easier, we have adopted the same scale as the U.S. While the European portable market has grown to the level that can be compared with the U.S., when it comes to the home console market, significant gap still exists.

In Europe, the total home console hardware market grew by 38% over the last year, which is a larger increase than in the U.S. Wii especially made a significant contribution by increasing its sales by 70%. As in the U.S., Wii is the best selling hardware in Europe. However, due to its 50%+ market share, the importance and presence of Wii in European markets appears to be bigger than that in the U.S.

We are now looking at the software unit sales transitions in the U.S. Last year, while the home console hardware sales saw a large increase, software market showed minimal growth. This year, because the Wii software market suddenly grew more than 2.7 times, the total software market showed significant growth. For your information, Grand Theft Auto 4 was launched this April but no drastic change in Xbox360's total software sales can be seen. It can also be observed that the large increase of PS3 software was offset by a dip in PS2 software sales.

In Europe, similar to the U.S., the home console software market did not show significant growth last year despite the large growth in hardware sales. However, as Wii software market drastically expanded to more than 3.3 times from last year, a larger growth than in the U.S., the total home console software market in Europe grew significantly by 28% this year. Grand Theft Auto 4 was also launched in Europe this year but the software sales scale of Sony and Microsoft combined were less than that of last year. It can be said, therefore, that the European software sales growth can be attributed to Wii software increase.
However, the European home console software market is still roughly half of that of the U.S., and is a marked contrast with that of the portable software market situation in the two regions.

When we look at the entire software market in the U.S., the size has grown year after year. This year is showing another increase over last year, and the increase ratio is even higher than that of last year's.

The software market, until last year, grew mainly because of strong DS software sales. This year saw a significant increase of Wii software, which has added to the overall large increase of the U.S. software market.

When we look at the software sales share between the three companies, Nintendo's presence in the market becomes more obvious.

Nintendo's software share has reached 46% of the total U.S. software unit sales.

In Europe, until last year, the rapid growth in DS software sales pushed up the portable software sales share among all the software sales, to almost 50%. This year, with the increase of Wii software sales, the home console software sales once again regained the majority share. When we look at these transitions, we can understand that European market is situated just between the Japan market whose growth has been largely lead by the portable market and the U.S. market which is a more home-console-centered market.

When we look at the overall software market by the three hardware manufacturers, the European market has observed more drastic changes in the market share. While the market size for Sony and Microsoft showed small changes in the last 4 years, Nintendo alone increased its sales by four times, which has been driving the growth of the total market.

As a result, the software share of Nintendo platforms exceeded 50% this year.