TOKYO: Nintendo Co. said Thursday its net profit nearly doubled in the nine months to December and it lifted its full-year revenue forecast on strong global sales of its game consoles including the Wii.

Analysts said the latest strong performance showed that Nintendo would likely remain resilient at a time that many companies are fretting about the impact of a slowing US economy.

Nintendo said it posted 96.3 percent growth in net profit to 258.93 billion yen (2.4 billion dollars) in the first three quarters of the financial year.

Its operating profit surged 135.1 percent to 394.04 billion yen and sales jumped 84.7 percent to 1.316 trillion yen, a statement said.

Nintendo raised its sales forecast for the full year to March to 1.63 trillion yen from an earlier estimate of 1.55 trillion yen and its operating profit forecast to 460 billion yen from 420 billion yen.

But the company, based in the western city of Kyoto, left its net-profit forecast unchanged at 275 billion yen, citing the adverse impact of the appreciation of the yen.

During the nine months, the handheld Nintendo DS continued to enjoy robust sales worldwide, selling a total of 24.5 million units, the statement said, adding software titles also drew strong demand.

The Wii console, which is known for its innovative motion-sensitive controller and is aimed at customers who normally would not play video games, had total sales of 14.29 million in the same period.

Its cumulative sales have exceeded 20 million since its launch in December 2006, it said, noting the "Wii Fit" software, which enables players to do a workout with a game console, was faring well.

"The Wii will likely continue to perform strongly," Mizuho Investors analyst Etsuko Tamura said, arguing the success of new software titles such as Wii Fit was bringing money to Nintendo as hardware had slimmer profit margins.

Nintendo is to rack up more profits as Wii Fit, currently available only in Japan, makes its overseas debut, she said.

"There are concerns over an economic slowdown in the United States but Nintendo is likely to be spared trouble," she said.

The Wii outsold rival Sony's PlayStation 3 three-fold in Japan last year, according to magazine publisher Enterbrain.

The Wii achieved cumulative sales of five million in Japan in the 60th week since its launch, Enterbrain said.

It was the fastest-ever rise to the five-million mark for a non-portable console, exceeding the previous record of the 66th week set by rival Sony's PlayStation 2.

The Nintendo consoles' success helped the US and Japanese video game market, the world's two largest, to best-ever sales last year.

Japan's video game market, including software sales, was worth a record 687.7 billion yen (6.37 billion dollars) in 2007, while US video game industry sales rose to 17.9 billion dollars in 2007, according to industry studies.

- AFP /ls