Nintendo beat market expectations in their latest earnings report to post a healthy profit for the last quarter, as the company continues its steady financial recovery after a turbulent period.

The strength of Wii U hardware sales is another matter, but Nintendo seems to have made the most out of the situation it finds itself in, and a period of cost-cutting and strong sales of reliable software have provided a net profit of 45.2 billion yen (about $384m) for the three months of October to December.

The company expects to post a full-year profit of around 30 billion yen, from total sales of around 550 billion yen (about $4.6 billion), by the end of March.

The good news ultimately comes from mixed fortunes of actual hardware sales. Wii U managed to sell 1.91 million consoles for the last 3 months of 2014, down slightly from the same period in 2013. 3DS hardware numbers also dropped - 4.99 million down from over 7.7 million.

However, software sales were strong. Almost 30 million 3DS games were sold over the busy period, as well as 11.19 million Wii U games.

Total worldwide Wii U sales stand at 9.2 million units, whilst 3DS sits at just over 50 million.

Leading Nintendo's assault on the high street over Christmas were Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, and Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U. Pokémon managed worldwide sales of 9.35 million for the period, whilst Super Smash Bros. for 3DS sold 6.19 million, and the Wii U version 3.39 million.

Nintendo also revealed that over 10 billion yen (about $85 million) worth of sales came from digital downloads of software and DLC.