While Sony and Microsoft have been writing their profit forecasts down things are still on a reassuringly upward trajectory over at Nintendo.

In fact the Japanese giant has just announced that it now expects to shift a million more Wii units than previously predicted - 27.5 globally instead of 26.5 by the end of this fiscal year. Putting that into some kind of context Microsoft is thought to have sold around 22 million Xbox 360s globally, and that‘s since the next-gen console launched at the back end of 2005!

But, as if to add insult to the injury of its rivals, Nintendo has also announced that sales of the DS in all its variations have just exceeded that of the good old GameBoy. That’s a staggering 83.4 million units for the DS compared to a paltry 81.3 for the GameBoy. However the latter figure does not embrace sales of the GameBoy Color, the inclusion of which would doubtless tell a slightly different tale.

Either way, it’s fair to say that the DS has sold moderately well and Nintendo still expects to shift 30.5 million of them before the financial year is over. Likewise the company is still on track to attain its profit target of two trillion yen. We have no idea how many zeroes that entails but we’re guessing it’s a lot and we’ll be on the phone to our broker just as soon as this story is posted…