Nintendo to see second year of record net profit

Nintendo now believes it will have pocketed $841 million, up from its November prediction of $611 million.

“Excluding the effects of the weak yen, the numbers were mostly in line with our previous forecasts,” a spokesman said. “We're certain sales will be on the plus side, although I don't know by how much. Of course, there'll be a lot of software coming out, which has high profit margins.”

This piece of news highlights exactly what Nintendo is: a huge global corporation. The portable gaming explosion of the past few years, powered and catalysed by the Pokemon boom of the late 90’s, has set Nintendo up for the foreseeable future. The refreshed interest in portable gaming carried the Game Boy Advance to previously unimaginable sales in its first year, lining Nintendo’s pockets and enabling the company to release a truly special home console, the Nintendo GameCube.

The consensus among gamers is that Microsoft can afford to make mistakes with its new console. It might be worth remembering that Nintendo isn’t short of a few quid.