A person dressed as the Nintendo character Mario waves at a pop-up Nintendo venue in Madison Square Park, March 3, 2017 in New York City.

Nintendo reported earnings for its fiscal third quarter of 2017 on Wednesday that beat market expectations, with the gaming giant also upping the sales forecast for its flagship Switch console.

The Japanese firm also increased its outlook for operating profit in the year ending March 2018.

Nintendo reported the following results for the three months to the end of December 2017.

Revenue of 482.97 billion yen ($4.44 billion) versus analyst forecasts of 407.86 billion yen, according to Reuters estimates. This is a more than 177 percent year-on-year rise. It's also the highest quarterly revenue figure since the quarter ending December 2009.

Operating profit of 116.5 billion yen versus expectations of 69.3 billion yen. This is an increase of over 261 percent and the highest quarterly operating profit since the quarter ending December 2009.

Nintendo also said it now expects to sell 15 million units of its Switch gaming console in the year ending March 2018, after previously raising the forecast to 14 million.

The gaming firm also raised its outlook. It now expects operating profit for the year ending March 31 to come in at 160 billion yen from a previous forecast of 120 billion yen.