Nintendo profits boom as people stuck at home play games

Nintendo’s says its profit for the fiscal year that ended in March jumped 86% on healthy sales of the Switch handheld machine as people staying at home due to the pandemic turned to video games

TOKYO -- Nintendo Co.’s profit for the fiscal year that ended in March jumped 86% on healthy sales of its Switch handheld machine as people stayed home due to the pandemic, turning to video games for entertainment. Annual profit for the Japanese maker of Super Mario and Pokemon games totaled 480.4 billion yen ($4.4 billion), up from 258.6 billion yen the year before. The results, released Thursday, were better than the company’s internal profit forecast of 400 billion yen ($3.7 billion). Sales rose 34% to 1.76 trillion yen ($16 billion), the company said. In game software sales, demand remained strong for “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” with 20.85 million units sold for cumulative sales of 32.6 million units. “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” and “Ring Fit Adventure” also were popular.