Nintendo reports record profits

Just over two weeks ago, the Mario factory announced that it was raising its profit forecast by 20 percent for the financial year. Today's end-of-nine-month report shows that Nintendo was right to be optimistic--consolidated net sales were up 72.8 percent over the same nine-month period the previous year. Operating income was also up 102.5 percent.

The company claimed that it had sold 3.19 million Wiis worldwide--falling short of its promised supply of 4 million by the end of 2006. Nintendo maintains that it has manufactured 4 million consoles as promised, although only 3.19 million were "sold and delivered." The breakdown showed 1.1 million units had been sold in Japan, 1.3 million in the Americas, and 800,000 in the rest of the world.

During the nine months ending December 31, three Wii games hit the 1 million sales mark, along with 13 DS titles, and three Game Boy Advance games.

The Nintendo DS sold 18.9 million units in the past nine months worldwide, making the total sold 35.6 million. Software for the handheld had reached 154 million units sold worldwide, of which new titles made up 21.6 million.

Nintendo also noted that nearly 1.4 million Wii systems had been connected to the Internet, and 1.5 million Virtual Console games had been downloaded or purchased. Also, 3.5 million unique users had played games on their DS using a Wi-Fi connection, making over 100 million connections in total.