Nintendo announced that its net profits fell by 51 per cent to Y33.19 billion, a result of the Yen's 12 percent rise against the US dollar over the course of the financial year. This is compared to net profits of Y67.27 billion for the 2002 fiscal year.

For the 2004 fiscal year, Nintendo forecasts net profits of Y70 billion. Nintendo hopes for a successful Nintendo DS launch and the continued sales of Game Boy Advance and GameCube to reach that number.

Nintendo said it would ship 3.5 million Nintendo DS systems by the fiscal year ending March 31, 2005.

Nintendo also said that it plans to ship 14 million units of the Game Boy Advance by the end of the fiscal year (it shipped 17.59 million in 2003) and 4.5 million units of the GameCube (compared to the 5.02 million it shipped in 2003).

Worldwide GameCube sales are currently at 14.57 million units, with 7.85 million GameCube units sold in North America and 3.46 million GameCube units sold in Japan.

In other sales related news today, Nintendo Japan has said that the Famicom Mini Series for the Game Boy Advance have sold over 1.5 million copies. Super Mario Bros. is the top seller with 500,000 copies of the game purchased.

Meanwhile Nintendo Europe said that the release of Pokemon Colosseum has increased GameCube hardware sales by 80 percent in the UK. Pokemon Colosseum is sold seperately or together with the GameCube console, a Memory Card 251, a Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Advance Cable and the Pokdex Organiser, and Pokmon Box.