* Futures buying lifts market on rising euro
* Late-stage Wall Street rebound prompts short-covering
* Focus shifting to Friday euro zone finance minister meeting
* Nintendo tumbles 5 pct ahead of 3DS conference
By Ayai Tomisawa
TOKYO, Sept 13 (Reuters) - The Nikkei stock average rose 1 percent on Tuesday as short-covering emerged after a tumble the day before, but traders said gains may be short-lived as investors focus on Europe's persistent debt woes and the U.S. economic outlook.
A late-stage rebound on Wall Street on a report that Italy could get financial support from China helped the Nikkei move away from Monday's 2-1/2 year closing low.
Traders said futures buying by programme traders pushed the index higher in the afternoon as the euro rose against the yen, but the index will likely be capped below its five-day moving average around 8,689.
The market is now looking ahead to a meeting of euro zone finance ministers on Friday, which U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is also set to attend.
While Europe's problems are in the spotlight, investors have not forgotten that the strength of the U.S. economy remains a concern.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is expanding its September meeting from the original single day session to two days on Sept. 20-21, and analysts took the move to mean that the Fed will take extra time to mull its monetary policy response to the downbeat economic outlook.
"The market is closely watching if there will be QE3 (a third round of the Fed's bond buying programme)," said Kyoya Okazawa, head of global equities and commodity derivatives at BNP Paribas.
"Even if the Fed announces it, the market will probably stay jittery about Europe's debt problems, but they are clearly watching the Fed's moves to take positions."
The benchmark Nikkei was up 1 percent at 8,618.45 in midafternoon trade.
The broader Topix index rose 1.2 percent to 750.07.
The euro last traded at 105.36 yen , compared with a 10-year low hit on Monday of 103.90 yen.
GAME MAKERS
Nintendo Co fell 5 percent to 12,300 yen as investors unloaded the game console maker's shares ahead of Tuesday's conference on its 3DS handheld device, a fund manager said, adding that a recent negative view on the company by Macquarie Securities also dampened sentiment towards the stock.
At the conference, Nintendo announced a raft of new software in an attempt to prop up disappointing sales of the 3DS, but there was no sign of the add-on accessory that games blogs have said is in the works.
Shares of other game companies also slipped, with Capcom Co dropping 4.8 percent to 2,049 yen and Square Enix losing 4.4 percent to 1,460 yen.
Elpida Memory surged 12 percent to 551 yen after rival Micron Technologies shares rose as much as 6 percent in U.S. trading on Monday. UBS added Micron to its "most preferred" list based on an expected bottoming out in DRAM memory chip pricing, a factor that a fund manager said will also help shares of its competitors.
Resistance for the Nikkei in the next week is seen at 8,732, which was the settlement level for futures and options expired in September, market participants said.
The benchmark was trading well above its next major downside target of 8,227.63, the intraday low hit on March 15 when stocks were sold off after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Ahead of that, traders cited some support around 8,500. (Additional reporting by Lisa Twaronite; Editing by Chris Gallagher)