BKK2 on 31 October 2008
As for Europe, just counting the population of countries where Nintendo has been directly marketing its products through its subsidiaries or offices amounts to more than 300million people, and when we look at the entire EU, there are more than 450million people. From the population viewpoint, the U.S. market potential is 2.5 times as much as that of Japan, and Europe has an even bigger business potential. Of course, as of today, the ratio of people who play video games in Europe is less than those in the U.S. and in Japan, and so is their overall percentage of active gamers to their total population. Accordingly, today's European game market's potential is smaller than that of the U.S. On the other hand, we feel that the rapid expansion of the European market must be proof that there are major changes taking place in the active gamer populations in Europe.
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When we look at the cumulative sales of Sony's PS2, it reminds us that the U.S. has more than twice the market potential of the Japan, and Europe has more than 1.5 times as much the Japanese market.
As these results date to the time before Nintendo started its challenge to expand the gaming population, the ratio of Europeans who are engaged in gaming today among Europe's total population, especially in the countries where Nintendo has been directly marketing its products, must be increasing. The actual European market potential of today, therefore, must be bigger than what we are seeing on the graph now.
I'm guessing Nintendo's European graph only covers "the countries where Nintendo has been directly marketing its products through its subsidiaries or offices". Anyone have a list of countries NoE handle directly?
