Nintendo Co. on Tuesday posted a record profit for the April-September period and lifted its net profit forecast for the full year ending March by more than 20 percent from an earlier projection, citing brisk video game sales and the benefit of a weaker yen.

For the six months ended September, net profit rose 17.7 percent from a year earlier to a record 271.30 billion yen ($1.8 billion) on sales of 796.24 billion yen, up 21.2 percent. The record figure came as sales of its Switch game console grew 2.4 percent to 6.84 million units.

A weaker yen also boosted its repatriated overseas earnings. The depreciation of the yen pushed up its pretax profit by 57.7 billion yen, the company said.

The company said it changed its exchange rate assumption for the U.S. dollar to 140 yen from 130 yen for the year to March to reflect the recent fall of the Japanese currency against it.

Given the solid earnings, the gaming giant also revised its net profit forecast for the year to 420 billion yen from 340 billion yen.

Group sales are now projected at 1.58 trillion yen for the business year, revised up by 9.0 percent from the previously estimated 1.45 trillion yen, the company said.

Sales of software titles for the Switch grew 1.8 percent from a year earlier to 97.1 million copies in the six months, helped by the hit "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom," the newest iteration launched in May of the popular action game.

The blockbuster success of "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" also helped boost sales of Mario-related games, Nintendo said.

With the brisk sales of popular titles, Nintendo raised its Switch software sales projection for the business year to 185 million copies from an earlier estimate of 180 million while maintaining the projection for the console at 15 million units.

==Kyodo

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