Nintendo lifts earnings forecast on strong Wii, DS sales

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Nintendo raised its business year profit forecast by 26% from an earlier figure Friday, citing healthy sales of its Wii home console and DS hand-held game machines. Nintendo also credited a recovering dollar for its new projection of a 410 billion yen profit for the business year ending next March.

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The Kyoto-based company had previously forecast a 325 billion yen profit for the business year. The revised projection would mark a whopping 60% jump in profit compared with the last business year.

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The maker of “Super Mario” and “Pokemon” games also raised its sales forecast for the year to next March to 2 trillion yen from an earlier 1.8 trillion yen.

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Nintendo said it expects to sell 26.5 million Wii machines in the year — better than the initial estimate of 25 million, and higher than the 18.6 million sold in the previous business year, which ended in March.

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Nintendo revised its forecast for DS sales upward to 30.5 million units for the year through March 2009, up from 28 million. It sold 30.3 million DS machines the previous business year.

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The company has now sold worldwide a cumulative 29.6 million Wii machines, which has a trademark wandlike remote control.

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