Nintendo saw its profits plunge 51 per cent during the first half of its current fiscal year as sales slid on falling demand for its ageing GameCube console.

"The market for the current generation of console hardware is becoming saturated and is approaching a transitional phase to next-generation consoles," the company warned. Its own next-gen machine, Revolution, is not expected to ship until the end of the fiscal year, in March 2006, at the earliest.

The six months from April to September 2005 yielded sales of ¥176.4bn ($1.49bn), down 6.2 per cent on the ¥188bn ($1.58bn) Nintendo reported this time last year. Still, the H1 FY2007 figure remains narrowly ahead of the company's forecast of ¥175m ($1.47bn).

Net income fell year on year, to ¥36.63bn ($308.57m) from ¥46.45bn ($391.29m), again just above Nintendo's forecast, which was ¥36bn ($303.26m).

However, Nintendo failed to meet its operating profit forecast, just missing the ¥20bn ($168.48m) target with a final figure of ¥19.6bn ($165.11m).

Looking ahead, Nintendo said it expects to post a full-year net profit of ¥75bn ($631.79m), down 14.1 per cent on FY2005's total, ¥87.4bn ($736.25m). It anticipates annual sales of ¥500bn ($4.21bn). ®