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Strong holiday sales of Wii and Nintendo DS portable game device allowed Japan's Nintendo to more than double its quarterly operating profit and to raise its outlook ahead of market expectations.

Wii sales outsold Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp's Xbox 360 in the United States and Japan last year. "Solid results, but the market's attention is already on the year ahead," said Takeshi Osawa, a senior fund manager at Norinchukin Zenkyoren Asset Management Reuters reported. "I would like to see how the firm will maintain its growth for the next several years."

Operating profit at Nintendo came to 205.3 billion yen ($1.93 billion) in October-December, an increase from 100.5 billion yen a year earlier. Net profit in October-December increased 63 percent from the same period a year before to 126.5 billion yen on sales of 621.6 billion yen, an increase of 50 percent.

Nintendo said it expects its operating profit to reach a record 460 billion yen for the year to March, up about 10 percent from an earlier forecast of 420 billion yen and above the 456.5 million yen that analysts predicted.