Strong sales of its popular Wii console have helped Nintendo, the video game maker, to almost double its profit in the past several months.

The Japanese company said that in the nine months to December 31, its profit was 258.93 billion yen (£1.24 billion) — up 96.3 per cent on the 131.92 billion yen it reported for the same period the previous year.

It also shrugged off concerns about a slowdown in consumer spending on electronic items such as consoles, saying that its business was "well shielded" from the present volatility in the financial markets.

With the Wii, Nintendo has successfully appealed to a group of "non-core gamers" — women and the elderly — who have traditionally been ignored by the games industry.

The device, which incorporates a "wand" that owners wave about, has consistently outsold its main competitors — the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox — over the past 12 months.

Nintendo said that more than 20 million Wii machines had been sold worldwide, including 14.29 million in the more recent three quarters, and that its DS handheld machine, which has introduced new types of games, such as one where owners can bring up a virtual pet, had sales of 24.5 million.

Sales rose by 84.7 per cent to Y1.316 trillion from the same period a year ago.

On the back of the results, the company raised its sales forecast to Y1.63 trillion for the full fiscal year through March 31 — up from an earlier estimate of Y1.55 trillion — but kept its profit forecast at Y275 billion.

"Some people say the overall economy is getting worse and consumption is weakening. But our industry seems to be pretty well shielded from what’s going on," Yoshihiro Mori, a senior managing director of the company, told a news conference.

Soon before the earnings were released, Nintendo shares were down by 2.4 per cent in Tokyo, to $499.

Analysts said that Nintendo had a strong year in 2007, but that it would come under much greater pressure this year from Sony, which was due to benefit from a raft of new titles for its PlayStation 3 platform

According to Enterbrain, the games magazine publisher, monthly sales of the PlayStation 3 — which costs nearly twice as much as the Wii — outstripped those of the Wii in Japan for the first time in November last year.

"Whether Nintendo is able to sustain this success is up for debate," Piers Harding-Rolls, an analyst for Screen Digest, said.

"It will really depend on whether they can continue to extend the games market to new groups of consumers, and whether they can introduce new pieces of software."

Wii Fit, a new touch-sensitive mat that can be added to the console and lets owners, for instance, head virtual footballs, is expected to be released in Europe in the second quarter this year.

Sony, meanwhile, is preparing to announce the arrival of a number of new games for PlayStation 3, including those from top-selling franchises, such as Gran Turismo and Killzone.

In December, Nintendo was unable to keep up with demand for Wiis, prompting analysts to say that the company would miss out on an estimated $1.3 billion (£660 million) in holiday sales.

The company said that it had been hit by product shortages, but some observers suggest that it privately welcomes tight supply to prolong interest in the console.

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