Nintendo's first-quarter net profits soared more than five-fold, further vindicating the Japanese group's declared policy of making video games for "people who don't like video games".

The company also sharply raised its full-year forecasts on soaring sales of its Wii console and the continued success of its DS handheld machine. Nintendo's success ratchets up the pressure on Sony, whose PlayStation 3 is being outsold by at least two to one by the Wii.

Nintendo posted net earnings of ¥80.25 billion (£326 million) in the three months to June, traditionally a quiet quarter for video games sales, up from ¥15.55 billion a year earlier. Revenue was up 160 per cent to ¥340.44 billion as the company sold 3.4 million Wii consoles and 7 million DS machines worldwide over the three months. The Wii has now sold more than 9 million units since its launch last autumn.

Hiroshi Kamide, an analyst at KBC Securities, said: “The gaming industry has woken up to the fact that there’s a real commercial side to non-core gaming. Nintendo’s been saying this for the last two or three years. They’re really reaping the rewards of that strategy now."

Nintendo added that it now plans to ship 16.5 million Wii consoles by March 31 2008, up from 14 million previously. Targets for shipments of Wii software were lifted to 72 million units, from 55 million. DS shipments were lifted to 26 million, from 22 million.

At the E3 conference, the annual gathering for the computer games industry, in Santa Monica earlier this month, Nintendo extended its strategy of targeting consumers formerly considered unlikely to play video games when it unveiled Wii Fit, a new game for the Wii console.

In what is becoming a signature Nintendo move, the title will come with a new controller. The Balance Board is a pressure-sensitive mat-like device that is used to regulate physical work-outs, tells users if they are overweight and will even scold users who slouch.

The promotional video aired at the E3 lunch event featured a young woman using it to take her through a yoga routine — a target market worlds away from the teenage boys who have driven the games industry's past cycles .

For Nintendo games, the company claims, the ratio of men to women buyers has fallen to two to one from an industry average of four to one.

Meanwhile, Brain Training, the 10-million-selling DS title aimed at older people and billed as a cerebral workout, is still selling 10,000 copies a week – two years after its launch.

There have also been signs that Nintendo's strategy has made other games groups rethink their strategy. On the eve of the E3 conference, John Riccitiello, the head of Electronic Arts, the largest games publisher, conceded that a barrage of sequels, shoot-em-ups and driving games was "boring people to death".

He went on to suggest that the economics of producing complex titles for technologically-heavy consoles such as the PS3 are not stacking up. A PS3 game costs up to an estimated $20 million, four times that of a Wii equivalent. EA's profits slumped 70 per cent last year, their third successive decline.

Nintendo now expects a 40.6 per cent rise in net profit to 245 billion yen for the 12 months to March, up from a previous forecast for 175 billion yen. Revenue is seen climbing 44.8 percent to 1.4 trillion yen.

Nintendo shares closed up 1,900 yen or 3.5 per cent at 56,400 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The company recently broke out figures showing that sales of games hardware and software are up more than 40 per cent in the UK so far this year compared with the same period in 2006, and have surged more than 110 per cent in Japan. Nintendo, it is estimated, accounts for two thirds of the growth.

In another sign of the current vibrant state of the games industry, organisers of Games Convention, the industry gathering to be held in Leipzig in August, are expecting 200,000 visitors to attend.

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