Nintendo quarterly profit up on Switch console, game sales

YURI KAGEYAMA

TOKYO (AP) — Nintendo Co., the Japanese video-game maker behind the Super Mario and Pokemon franchises, reported a 12 percent gain Tuesday in its profit in July-September on the back of healthy Switch console sales.

Nintendo logged a 34 billion yen ($301 million) profit in the last quarter, up from 30 billion yen a year earlier, while quarterly sales rose to 221 billion yen ($2 billion) from 220 billion yen.

Sales of Switch software, including "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe," ''Splatoon2" and "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild," were strong, the Kyoto-based company said.

More Switch game-software products, like "Pokemon: Let's go, Pikachu!" will go on sale ahead of the holidays.

Switch machines sales in April-September totaled 5 million units, up nearly 4 percent from a year earlier.

Nintendo has recently gotten into offering games for smart devices, and its latest, "Dragalia Lost," has done well in Japan, the U.S., Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, the company said.

The company said it is still banking on the success of earlier platforms like the Nintendo 3DS.

For the first six months of the fiscal year, Nintendo reported a profit of 64.6 billion yen ($572 million), up 25 percent on sales of 389 billion yen, up 4 percent on-year.

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