Nintendo raises profit outlook 20% for year

Japan’s Nintendo Co. raised its profit outlook by 20% for its current fiscal year because of upbeat sales worldwide of its portable game player Nintendo DS.

The company raised its profit forecast to 120 billion yen ($1 billion) for its fiscal year ending in March from an earlier estimate of 100 billion yen.

Nintendo also scored an unexpected success with its new Wii gaming system. The company left unchanged its projection of selling 6 million Wii consoles by the end of March but raised its Wii software sales forecast to 21 million units from 17 million.