Nintendo Co. said Thursday it marked record sales and profits for the three months ended June as the gaming giant received a boost from brisk sales of the latest Legend of Zelda title and the blockbuster success of the Super Mario Bros. movie.

Its operating profit for the fiscal first quarter jumped 82.4 percent from a year earlier to 185.44 billion yen ($1.3 billion), with net profit soaring 52.1 percent to 181.02 billion yen. Sales grew 50.0 percent to 461.34 billion yen.

The results came as "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom," the newest iteration of the popular action game launched in May, became a huge hit, selling 18.51 million copies by the end of June.

"The Super Mario Bros. Movie," which premiered in April, also contributed to the Japanese company's strong sales. Its overseas earnings surged when repatriated due to the rapidly weakening yen.

Sales of its Switch game console rose 13.9 percent to 3.91 million units in the reporting quarter, with those who want to play the Zelda and Mario titles apparently prompted to buy the machine.

The number of Switch software sold increased 26.1 percent to 52.21 million copies.

Despite the upbeat results, Nintendo maintained its full-year earnings forecasts, saying it still wants to see how Christmas sales will go.

For fiscal 2023 ending March next year, the company projects a net profit of 340 billion yen, down 21.4 percent from the previous year, and sales of 1.45 trillion yen, down 9.5 percent.

Nintendo also kept its earlier projection of selling 15 million Switch units for the business year, down 16.5 percent.

==Kyodo

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