Nintendo reported that its nine-month global sales from April to December 2008 hit roughly US$17.1 billion, growing by 17% over last year. Operating profits were up 27%. It’s the fourth year in a row that the company has exceeded its previous results from the same nine-month period.

But even Nintendo can’t avoid economic downturn, as recurring and net profits for that same period each declined about 18% caused by US$1.9 billion in foreign currency reevaluation losses from assets held in currencies other than Japanese Yen.

So with the end of the fiscal year looming on March 31, Nintendo’s revised its unit sales forecast for the Nintendo DS, upping it by 3% to 31.5 million globally, but lowered the handheld’s software sales forecast by 7% to 193 million. For the popular Wii, it decreased full year global unit sales estimates for hardware and software by 3% to 26.5 million systems and 193 million games.