The figures are in for the first half of the financial year, and it's good news for Nintendo!

Thanks largely to the phenomenal success story that is the DS, Nintendo have seen a rise in profits of nearly 50% in the first half of this financial year (April-September). The net profit figure weighs in at 361 million Euros, or a respectable 240 million of your British Pounds.

Overall croup sales rose by a rumble-pakking 70% to 1.98 Billion Euros, or approximately 1.5 billion GBP. Rather impressive by any standards.

During this period, the DS sold a whopping 10.9 million units worldwide -that's a lot of handheld joy all over the world. As we previously reported, Nintendo have now revised their sell-through figures up from 17 million to 20 million by the end of the financial year.

What does this mean for us? More money means more games, more applications and more innovative uses of the unique handheld, and hopefully its soon-to-be-released big brother, the Wii.