There hasn't been much good news to report regarding Nintendo's financial situation since the company's historic annual loss way back in the 2011-2012 period. That may be changing, though, as strong sales of new Wii U and 3DS software helped raise the company to a surprising quarterly profit of 24.2 billion yen (about $224 million) in net income for the three months ending September 2014. That's quite a turnaround after a loss of over eight billion yen (about $74.2 million) in the same period last year.

Nintendo cited a few hit titles in driving the financial turnaround: newly released Super Smash Bros. for 3DS sold 3.22 million copies worldwide in September alone, while zany simulation Tomodachi Life sold an additional 1.27 million copies in the last six months. On the Wii U side, Nintendo noted that Mario Kart 8 has "continued to show steady sales," following its 2.82 million unit debut last quarter, and Hyrule Warriors has "gained popularity" following its Western release. Perhaps tellingly, the company didn't release specific sales data for those two Wii U titles.

On the console hardware front, Nintendo sold just over 600,000 Wii U units worldwide in the July through September period, pushing the system to 7.29 million units overall since its 2012 launch. That puts the total installed base for the Wii U roughly on par with that for the Xbox One, according to a recent Ars analysis . It's important to note, though, that Nintendo's system has had an extra year on the market to reach that sales figure, and the Wii U currently seems to be selling more slowly than the Xbox One on a monthly basis.

On the portable side, hardware sales momentum for the 3DS has slowed down a bit; the system sold just over two million units in the last six months, about half the performance of a year prior. There are now over 45 million 3DS units in customers' hands worldwide, representing a huge turnaround from the system's early market struggles. Sales of the recently announced "new 3DS" in Japan are "off to a good start," Nintendo said, without going into specifics as to what that actually means.

The good financial news wasn't enough to get Nintendo to modify its full-year profit or hardware sales projections, but the company did express optimism that upcoming titles like Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire will help drive a strong holiday season.