DS pushes Nintendo sales ever higher

Japanese console giant Nintendo raised its sales forecasts last week, for the fourth time in one year. For the year to end March 31, the company now expects sales to reach Y966bn, an increase of Y66bn on prior forecasts.

Nintendo said the boost is largely due to strong sales of the Nintendo DS portable gaming system software and hardware.

Sales figures for February from market watcher, NPD Group, showed that Nintendo's DS racked up an astonishing 485,000 unit sales, which combined with strong sales of the Wii, which sold 335,000 units gave Nintendo a 54 per cent share of all gaming hardware sales.

Last week, Sony also had to cut the official US list price of its PlayStation Portable by 15 per cent from $199.99 to $169.99 in order to fend off strong competition from the DS.