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Nintendo sells 3.61 million 3DS handhelds, but sees 2010 net profit decline by 66 percent

It's a "good news, bad news" kind of a day in Super Mario land, as Nintendo's announcement of a Wii successor has been followed up with the delivery of the company's financial results for fiscal year 2010, which don't make for happy reading. Nintendo's net sales of $12.4 billion for the period ending on March 31st 2011 was 29 percent less than it tallied during the previous year, while its $825 million of net profit was also a staggering 66 percent lower than it earned last year. The 3DS has sold well so far, reaching 3.61 million transactions worldwide, but the Wii is down to 15 million global sales, which marks a 25 percent contraction from its FY2009 total of 20 million. So the impetus for a hardware refresh of the Wii is clearly there, now it's just a matter of waiting for E3 to find out exactly how Nintendo plans to go about it.