Nintendo's FY2006 dividend sets a new high water mark

Following on from yesterday's report that Nintendo has revised its forecast for the full financial year ended March 31st 2006, the firm has also announced that its dividend this year will be the highest in the company's history.

Nintendo plans to pay out 370 Yen (2.57 Euro) per share, including an interim dividend of 70 Yen which was paid in December. The total payout is 100 Yen higher than last year's dividend payment.

The company's raised projections have come on the back of favourable currency exchange rate movements and strong sales of the Nintendo DS console, which has now sold over six million units in Japan alone, and well over 15 million units worldwide.

The firm has also today responded to criticism of the failure to meet demand for the DS Lite since its launch at the start of March, and is pledging to ship 700,000 units of the redesigned hardware in Japan during April.