Nintendo Co. said Thursday its group pretax profit logged a year-on-year decline of 83.7 percent in the first half, coming in at 8.42 billion yen.

The game console and software maker attributed the decline to exchange losses stemming from a sharp appreciation of the yen to a level well above that anticipated by the firm.

But the Kyoto-based company suffered a softer earnings fall in its group net balance, following gains generated from the sale of an affiliate.

Nintendo's group net profit fell 44.8 percent to 18.97 billion yen in the six-month period through Sept. 30. Sales fell 7.8 percent to 208 billion yen.

The producer of the Game Boy consoles and the Super Mario software series incurred 29.11 billion yen in appraisal losses of its dollar- and euro-denominated funds, based on the yen's exchange rates against the two currencies.

A stronger yen hurts the earnings of export-oriented firms such as Nintendo.

It erodes profits generated abroad when this money is repatriated.

Of the company's 208 billion yen in consolidated midyear sales, 172.7 billion yen, or 83.1 percent, was generated overseas, Nintendo said.

The company retained the full-year earnings projections released Oct. 1, forecasting a group net profit of 80 billion yen and a pretax profit of 110 billion yen on sales of 600 billion yen.

In 2001, the company generated a net profit of 106.44 billion yen, a pretax profit of 186.62 billion yen and sales of 554.89 billion yen.