My Way News - Wii Helps Nintendo Year-End Profits Soar

My Way News - Wii Helps Nintendo Year-End Profits Soar: "Booming year-end sales of the wand-wielding Wii game console sent profit at Nintendo soaring 43 percent for the nine months ended December, the Japanese manufacturer of Pokemon and Super Mario games said Thursday.
Nintendo Co., which also makes GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS handheld machines, recorded group net profit of 131.9 billion yen ($1.1 billion) in the first nine months of the fiscal year, up dramatically from 92.2 billion yen the same period a year earlier.
The company did not break down quarterly numbers.
Sales soared 73 percent to 712.6 billion yen ($5.9 billion) during the April-December period from 412.3 billion yen the previous year, the Kyoto-based company said in a release.
Nintendo's Wii is embroiled in a head-to-head battle in next-generation home game consoles against sector leader Sony Corp. (SNE)'s PlayStation 3, which has been plagued with production problems.
Wii, inspired by the English word 'we,' has benefited from its fun image built around the wandlike remote controller that players wave around like a tennis racket, fishing rod, drumstick or gun, depending on the game.
Nintendo said it sold 3.19 million Wii machines worldwide, 1.25 million in the Americas, and 1.14 million in Japan.
The company said it had met its target of 4 million units shipped by the end of 2006 as that number had been manufactured and were still getting distributed, according to spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa."