The Japanese maker of the gaming console Wii, Nintendo, has revised upward its earnings projections for the financial year ending March 2008. The company said it expects a net profit of 245 billion yen (2.03 billion dollars) for the year, up from the previous projection of 175 billion yen, due to the strong sales of Wii and Nintendo DS.

Wii, the Nintendo’s response to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3, was launched in November 2006 and it became an instant block buster thanks to its price ($250) and its innovative gameplay.

According to data released by the US research firm NPD Group, Nintendo’s Wii was constantly the best-selling next-gen gaming console in US during the last five months.

The Japanese company said that in the April-June quarter it sold 3.43 million Wii machines worldwide, which means that the total number of the units sold is 9.27 million units.

From these 3.81 million were sold in the Americas, 2.95 million in Japan and another 2.51 million in other territories.

Xbox 360, which was launched by Microsoft in November 2005, has surpassed recently the target of 10 million units sold.

Cumulative sales of the Nintendo DS machine totaled 47.27 million units since its debut in late 2004.

Nintendo expects to sell a total of 16.5 million Wii units in the fiscal year ending in March 2008, up from its previous forecast of 14 million.

Nintendo also revised operating profit upward to 370 billion yen from 270 billion yen, while sales to grow 1.4 trillion yen from 1.14 trillion yen and the company reported a net profit of 80.25 billion yen for the three months until June 30, up from 15.55 billion yen.