June Hardware Sales See 34 Percent Bump, Mario Party 8 Tops Software Sales

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The availability of Sony's and Nintendo's newest consoles brought a significant year-over-year increase to June hardware sales in the U.S., with total hardware sales reaching $398.6 million, up 34% from the same period last year, according to industry trackers at the NPD Group. Home console-only sales increased 69% to $268.0 million, with handhelds actually seeing a 6% year-over-year decrease to $130.6 million. Last year's handheld sales were spurred by the early June launch of Nintendo's redesigned DS Lite in North America.

For current-gen hardware, Wii sales led the pack with 381,800 consoles sold in June, followed by Xbox 360 with 198,400, and PlayStation 3 with 98,500, according to NPD. Though handheld sales were down compared to last June, total units sold of the two handhelds ran well above total console sales, with 561,900 DS units and 290,100 PSPs peddled to portable players.

Nintendo dominated software sales, with Wii and DS titles taking the top four best-selling spots and six out of the top ten. Leading the Mario army was Mario Party 8, the best-selling game for June, with sales of 426,200 units. Software sales overall were up 22% year-over-year in June to $543.0 million.

Combined video game sales--hardware, software, and accessories--totaled $1.1 billion for June, a 31% increase over last year. Year-to-date, overall video game sales have trumped 2006 sales by 42%, totaling $6.1 billion. June's top ten best-selling games and their respective sales figures are listed below.

  1. Mario Party 8 (Wii; Hudson Soft, Nintendo) 426,200 units
  2. Wii Play with remote (Wii; Nintendo) 293,200
  3. Pokemon Diamond (NDS; Game Freak, Nintendo) 288,400
  4. Pokemon Pearl (NDS; Game Freak, Nintendo) 214,700
  5. Forza Motorsport 2 (X360; Turn 10 Studios, Microsoft) 197,400
  6. Guitar Hero 2 with guitar (PS2; Harmonix, Activision) 197,350
  7. Guitar Hero 2 with guitar (X360; Harmonix, Activision) 177,600
  8. Pokemon Battle Revolution (Wii; Genius Sonority, Nintendo) 157,900
  9. Resident Evil 4 (Wii; Capcom)
  10. The Darkness (X360; Starbreeze Studios, 2K Games)
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