It’s a positive announcement to kick of the fiscal year for Nintendo, after spending much of the previous 12 months trying to consolidate its business. The company has launched a number of mobile games including last summer’s hit “Pokemon Go” and more recently “Super Mario Run”. Mobile had been an area Nintendo had previously lost out on, but it is now making strong progress and expects it to be one of its “major pillars of profits” in the mid-to-long-term.

Thanks to its efforts in mobile, Nintendo’s brand has also seen a strong revival, and the company has managed to tap into some of the nostalgia around its past games and consoles. Last year, the company released a Nintendo Classic Edition, which came with pre-installed games and cost $59.99. It quickly sold out with some going on eBay for as much as $5,000. Nintendo said the NES Classic launched to “widespread popularity”.

And the knock-on effect has been seen in sales of Nintendo hardware. The company said the 3DS handheld console, which was released in 2011, saw a 7 percent year-on-year rise in sales. This was helped by strong titles such as “Pokemon Sun” and “Pokemon Moon”, which gained popularity because of “Pokemon Go”.

“The release of the smart device application ‘Pokemon Go’ led to increased sales of software in the Pokémon series and drove the Nintendo 3DS family hardware sales growth outside of Japan,” Nintendo said in its earning statement.

Investors have been supportive of Nintendo’s turnaround efforts with shares up 60 percent in the last 12 months. The stock also has 5 strong buy ratings, 10 buy ratings, 5 holds, 1 sell and 1 strong sell, showing the bias is generally positive towards the company’s shares. The mean price target on the stock is 31,175 yen, which represents around 14 percent upside from Thursday’s close, Reuters data shows.

“The brand has been reinvigorated and now with that revitalized branding of the licenses, this year and into next year is about pushing on with new differentiated cutting edge tech,” Neil Campling, head of global technology, media and telecom research at Northern Trust Capital Markets, told CNBC by phone.

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