Submitted by: kirkland on Sunday October 29th, 2006 at 04:05 PM EST

Nintendo Co. said Thursday that its profit jumped 48 percent in the first half of its fiscal year on booming sales of its Nintendo DS hand-held game machine.

Nintendo posted a profit of $457 million in the six months ended Sept. 30, up from $309 million a year earlier, the Kyoto, Japan-based game maker said. Sales soared 70 percent, to $2.51 billion, compared with the same period last year. The company did not release quarterly figures.

Sales of the hugely popular Nintendo DS soared to 10.09 million units in the first half, up from 3.57 million a year earlier, the company said. It plans to sell 20 million of the machines during the current fiscal year.

» Full story @ Seattle PI