For some reason, I got the idea to translate the article.  I've only translated the first third or so, and it's really not my best work, but I may as well post it here since it's relevant.

"Are Paradigm Shifts Commonplace and Worldwide in Scale?" - A Seminar by Enterbrain's Mr. Hamamura

Translation by Sky Render


* Paradigm Shift is Worldwide-Scale, not Local

 On April 11, 2008, the Enterbrain company president carried out his bi-yearly press conference with analyst Koichi Hamamura's seminar, "The Present Condition of the Game Industry and Outlook (Spring 2008)".  Focusing mainly on the game industry during the 2007 fiscal year, it's subtitled "Competition in the Game Business is Changing via Paradigm Shift".  "This is not just a change , but a paradigm shift for the entire industry (a shift of the values of the whole of society), which has taken place on a worldwide scale," (Hamamura) says; and "paradigm shift" is the key word, around which the analysis of the industry inside and out of the country, as well as the industry's future, and other such matters, revolves around.  * All data is from Enterbrain's research.


* Game Market Expansion in the PAL Region in the Last 5 Years is Twice as Fast on a Worldwide Scale

 First, an analysis on a worldwide scale (Japan, US, Europe), which shows that the game market is the largest ever in 2007, at a record 4.7 trillion Yen.  The US makes up a large part of the market at about 2 trillion Yen, while Europe (PAL and other territories) are around 2 trillion Yen as well (Great Britain is about 670 billion Yen), and Japan follows up at 700 billion.  What's interesting is that, although Japan's market has also grown over the fiscal year in ratio, the result is a drop in overall market share.  That is to say that the European and American markets showed more growth than Japan.

 In the US market hardware is doing well with an increase of 39% over the fiscal year, and in Europe (especially in the British market), hardware and software both jumped.  Compared to the previous fiscal year, the market size has increased by 70%, to a record high level.  Although the game industry is doing well globally, the one major factor of this is "the success of Nintendo's business", which Mr. Hamamura will be analyzing.  On a global level, the Nintendo DS and Wii are in short supply and high popular demand, and creating a social phenomenon in various areas, which has contributed to the steady expansion of the gaming population.  That this trend is occurring in Japan is well known.  However, as it happens here, this change is also occurring gradually in Western markets.  The PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360 High Definition (HD) hardware has also gone up.

 If observing systems only by their sales, Mr. Hamamura says, "While the Wii is sweeping over the world market, the XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3 in Europe and America are gaining strength" according to current data.  Although the Wii holds a solid 36% of the hardware share, and is at the top of the American market, the XBOX 360 continues to hold strong with 26%.  In European areas including Britain, the PlayStation 3's strength is remarkable, and although it is greatly surpassed by the Wii, It has already passed the XBOX 360 in market share.

 Although it's true that the XBOX 360 has the advantage of early sales, going by how it stands now, why is the popularity of the PlayStation 3 so much greater in Europe?  A substantial title lineup which helped make up for the delay between releases, a deep-rooted Sony brand presence, the shortages of the Wii, a hit soccer game, and other such factors can be considered, but hardware is being pulled along, more than anything, by the karaoke software "SingStar".

 Although we're unfamiliar with this software in Japan, a stellar 11 million sales total of the series in Europe have occurred, and this monstrously popular software also comes with a microphone that has sold 5 million.  "There is also the success of the 'EyeToy' from the start in Europe, a piece of PlayStation hardware that's popular with families.  European cultures all but lack a 'karaoke box', so karaoke has been a breakthrough success, with the ability to download additional music also helping keep interest alive from one game to the next." (Hitoshi)  From journalists to European-oriented game shows, the overwhelming popularity of 'SingStar' is clearly felt.

 In light of the strength of HD hardware in Europe, in spite of the high price it entails, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe will be releasing the PlayStation 3 (40GB) within 2008 as a pair of special packages (with and without software included) on the market for 299 Pounds/399 Euros, a significant price reduction.  The price of the XBOX 360 as of March 14, 2008 has been reduced to 80 Euros, reportedly a lower price than the Wii.  But will these measures be likely to spur a comeback for HD hardware......!?

 With the XBOX 360 still strong in the American market, and the PlayStation 3 in the British one, and now in Japan the trend differs from those areas with the Wii dominant, this makes for unfortunate business opportunities for third parties; for though it's not possible to judge the market trend just yet, this was not an expected situation either.  This flow has also affected Japanese third parties: in the domestic market they focus on software for the Wii and DS, and the PlayStation 3 for the overseas market, with the XBOX 360 making for a split in the development teams to release on both systems.

 If there's enough interest, I'll translate the remaining 2/3rds too.

Thanks for the translation! Any chance of translating some of the slides too?

@YoppaDo I think Jap's are crazier about games , but brits have more expendable income.

Some of the slides are hard to translate due to the distance from the screen making the Kanji illegible, but I'll try.

The first image is of the PlayStation 3 User Base as it's distributed across various countries. It appears to be largely European countries listed, but it's phenomenally hard to tell thanks to the distance.

The second image is the breakdown of game industry sales in 2007 in Japan (blue), America (pink), Great Britain (yellow), and PAL territories besides Great Britain (also yellow; the larger wedge). According to the chart, the US market is up 10%, the Japanese market is up 43%, and of course we know from the article that the European market is up 70% overall. It looks like the info at the bottom of that slide is just clarification of various terms like what PAL means.

The third image is a breakdown of hardware sales in 2006 and 2007, and the change between 2006 and 2007 in percentage form (100% would mean no change). They're listed in the order of DS Lite, PSP, Wii, PS2, PS3, and XBOX 360. This is only for Japan, from the looks of it.

The fourth image is an analysis of Wii and DS third-party market share of sales in comparison. From the look of it, the Wii and DS are following almost the exact same pattern, which means that the Wii will likely see a raise in third party sales soon if it continues to follow the DS' trends.

The fifth image is a breakdown of the Nintendo DS user base. It looks like it's being broken down by hardcore gamer versus new and existing "casual" gamer demographics. The blue is the hardcore gamer, the pink is new gamers, and the white is the existing "casual" base.

The sixth image is a breakdown of a survey of PSP users asking how often they played Monster Hunter Portable games on their PSP each week. A lot of them answered "over 50 hours".

The seventh image is an analysis of the penetration of online distribution into the market. The yellow bars measure the number of digital distribution (online) sales, blue is software sales, and red is hardware sales. 2008, 2009 and 2010 are speculative. It appears to be Japan-centric (unsurprisingly; most of this data is).

The eighth and final image is just a summary slide, covering all of the major points of the seminar.

"The sixth image is a breakdown of a survey of PSP users asking how often they played Monster Hunter Portable games on their PSP each week. A lot of them answered "over 50 hours". "


Wow ... now that is a popular game :o

Monster Hunter Portable has become the PSP's answer to Pokemon in Japan. Just looking at its sales based off of VG Chartz data, you can see how true this is. The latest Monster Hunter Portable released has managed to actually beat Super Smash Bros Brawl's opening day and second week sales in Japan.

Thanks Sky Render, excellent work.

 Yeah ... the question is will the popularity of the game be enough to make a successfull debute on a home console , or will it be just a mild success like the home-console Pokemon games ...