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The continued success of the Wii has boosted first-half profits at Nintendo, the Japanese console maker has said.

According to the corporation's figures for the six months up until the end of September, profits have trebled from 12 months earlier.

It means Nintendo is now outselling its main rival Sony in the lucrative computer gaming market – a position analysts put down to impressive sales of the innovative Wii and the handheld DS system.

Nintendo said it made 188.8 billion yen (£810 million) in profit over the first-half of 2007, up from 67.1 billion yen (£290 million) a year earlier.

It also upped its operating forecast for profit for the full 2007-08 financial year, predicting it will make 420 billion yen (£1.8 billion) by March 2008, an increase of 50 billion yen from earlier estimates and 86 per cent higher than the previous year's figures.

Some 7.3 million units of the Wii have been sold in the last six months, outselling the XBox 360 by Microsoft.

Nintendo has also seen its DS handheld machine retain its popularity among gamers, with 13.4 million having been sold.

As a result of its strong figures the Japanese firm says it expects to sell 17.5 million units of the Wii this financial year, an increase of a million on the previous estimate.

It also believes 28 million DS units will be shipped by March 2008, up from the previous forecast of 26 million.

Nintendo has enjoyed something of a resurgence in recent years having lost ground to its rivals after building up a successful reputation in the 1990s.

The firm credits much of this to the fact it has positioned the Wii as "a machine that puts smiles on the surrounding people's faces" by way of its unique gaming system – a stylus which can be moved by the gamer to affect the on-screen action.