Nintendo reports profits for the first time in years, gears up to put Mario on smartphones

Company hopes that new mobile phone tie-ups will be enough to sustain its momentum as Wii U and 3DS sales drop off

(Getty Images)

Nintendo has reported a profit, the first time it’s made money for four years.

It made 41.8 billion yen (£230 million) in the year to March, it has said.

The results reported today by the Kyoto-based maker of Super Mario video games and the Wii home console was better than its own forecast for a 30 billion yen (£164 million) profit. It was in line with the forecast in a FactSet survey of analysts.

Nintendo, which did not break down quarterly figures, reported a loss of 23.2 billion yen the previous fiscal year.

Nintendo did an about-face recently and said it's entering smartphone games, a segment it brushed off for years as irrelevant. It hopes that can sustain the success of last year in 2014 — a challenge which some have said could be difficult since Wii U and 3DS sales are likely to reduce in years to come.

Many of the company’s first-party games are also being hit by problems — Legend of Zelda for Wii U has been delayed, and so it will be hoping that it’s smaller games and a tie-up with a mobile phone gamer will be enough to offset those.

Nintendo pioneered games, developing one of the first machines on the market, as well as the hit Game Boy hand-held device.

Additional reporting by Press Association