Wii, DS Boost Nintendo Profits – PS3s Boost Folding@Home

Massive demand for Nintendo’s Wii games machine and soaring sales of its DS console have brought record profits for the Japanese firm.

Its net profits grew 77.2% to 174.3bn yen (£731m; $1.4bn) in the year to 31 March, while sales surged 90%. Nintendo had been struggling against rivals Sony and Microsoft until its new innovations revitalised its business.

Nintendo games are best known for characters such as Mario, Pokemon and Donkey Kong. However, games aimed at older players, such as Brain Training for Adults, have also proved particularly popular.

BBC – Wii and DS boost Nintendo profits

Attempts to understand diseases such as Alzheimers have got a boost from Sony’s PlayStation 3 console. More than 250,000 PS3 owners have enrolled their console in the Folding@Home project which uses it to study the shapes proteins assume. So many have signed up that the project has carried out a year’s worth of research in a month.

“Thanks to PS3, we have performed simulations in the first few weeks that would normally take us more than a year to calculate,” said Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and leader of the Folding@Home project.

Sony said an update to the F@H PS3 program would boost speeds and make it easier to see who else was participating.

BBC – PS3 boosts protein research plan