Wii helps Nintendo profits surge

Soaring sales of the Wii console have helped quarterly profits at Nintendo grow by a third against a year ago.

Nintendo's net profit for April to June was 107.3bn yen ($995m; £502m). It sold 5.2 million Wiis in the quarter, 1.7 million more than a year ago.

The company also sold 3.42 million of its new Wii Fit games and 6.42 million Mario Kart games.

Since the Wii was launched in November 2006, Nintendo's shares have doubled while rival Sony has fallen 12%.

The strong sales are another indication of the way that Nintendo's motion-sensitive console has appealed to groups who were not previously big consumers of games consoles, such as older people.

Nintendo has sold a total of 29.6 million Wii consoles since its launch, while Sony has sold 14.4 million of its PlayStation 3 console, which went on sale at about the same time as the Wii.

Sales of Nintendo's portable machine, the DS, have had a less impressive three months.

Sales dipped to 6.94 million units between April and June compared with 6.98 million for the same period in 2007.

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