Enterbrain: Japanese video game market grew 9.9% in 2007 to record value

Tokyo, Jan. 7, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) - The value of the computer game market in Japan grew last year by 9.9 percent to a record 687.7 billion yen, led by the sales success of Nintendo Co Ltd's Nintendo DS and DS Lite, magazine publisher Enterbrain said Monday.

The hardware market expanded by 25.0 percent to 327.41 billion yen, while the software market contracted by 1.0 percent to 360.25 billion yen, Enterbrain said in a written statement.

In the hardware market, Nintendo sold 7.14 million Nintendo DSs and DS Lites and 3.63 million Wii consoles last year.

Sony Corp unit Sony Computer Entertainment Inc sold 3.02 million PlayStation Portables.

In the software market, Nintendo sold 1.91 million sets of Wii Sports and Capcom Co Ltd sold 1.49 million sets of Monster Hunter Portable 2. Nintendo sold 1.487 million sets of Hajimeteno Wii, the introductory software package for the Wii console, Enterbrain said.

(1 US dollar = 108.95 yen)

By Kaori Kaneko