Nintendo's profit jumps as Super Mario franchise gets a boost from hit film

abcnews.go.com:

Nintendo is reporting a 52% increase in profit for the first fiscal quarter following the success of its Super Mario movie and the new Zelda video game

TOKYO — Nintendo reported a 52% increase in net profit for the first fiscal quarter on Thursday following the success of its Super Mario movie and the new Zelda video game.

Demand was strong for Nintendo Switch game software, which received a boost from the release earlier this year of the film about the jumping plumber called “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” according to Nintendo Co.

The film has so far drawn more than 168 million people globally, grossing $1.3 billion.

That makes it one of the top-selling animation films on record, second only to “Frozen II,” and the top animation film based on a video game. The “Lion King” 2019 remake, while it uses computer graphics and was an even a bigger hit, isn’t categorized as an animation film.

Also helping lift Nintendo’s results was the popularity of “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” game, released in May, the latest in the hit action-adventure series.

The Japanese video game maker’s April-June net profit totaled 181 billion yen ($1.3 billion), up from nearly 119 billion yen a year ago. Quarterly sales surged 50% to 461.3 billion yen ($3.2 billion).

Hardware sales jumped nearly 14% to 3.9 million Nintendo Switch machines, while software sales also grew, increasing 26% to 52 million games sold.

Nintendo also got a healthy boost in revenue from its intellectual property business, exemplified by the Super Mario film but also other royalties.

Nintendo has been pushing the idea of having several Nintendo Switch consoles per household, not just one, with family members each working a machine to play together.

Among the