Nintendo's pre-tax profit rose for the first time in five years, helped by the booming popularity of its Pocket Monsters video game software, the company said yesterday. Its group pre-tax profit soared 44.1 per cent from a year earlier to 157.6 billion yen (£830 million) in the year to March, coming close to the 166.2 billion yen made in its heyday of the year to March 1993.

The world's top home electronic game producer, maker of the highly successful "Game Boy", said net profit jumped 27.8 per cent to 83.7 billion yen, with sales also up 27.8 per cent at 534.6 billion yen. Operating profit shot up by 96.3 per cent to 127.8 billion yen.